Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany

by Eleanor Ramrath Garner

Overview

An engrossing coming-of-age autobiography of a young American caught in Nazi Germany during World War II.

During the Great Depression, when Eleanor is nine, her family moves from her beloved America to Germany, from which her parents had emigrated years before and where her father has been offered a job he cannot pass up. But when war suddenly breaks out as her family is crossing the Atlantic, they realize returning to the United States isn't an option. They arrive in Berlin as enemy aliens.

Eleanor tries to maintain her American identity as she feels herself pulled into the turbulent life roiling around her. She and her brother are enrolled in German schools and in Hitler's Youth (a requirement). She fervently hopes for an Allied victory, yet for years she must try to survive the Allied bombs shattering her neighborhood. Her family faces separations, bombings, hunger, the final fierce battle for Berlin, the Russian invasion, and the terrors of Soviet occupancy.

This compelling story is heart-racing at times and immerses readers in a first-hand account of Nazi Germany, surviving World War II as a civilian, and immigration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561452965
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	08/05/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.44(h) x 0.73(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Eleanor Ramrath Garner attended Boston University and pursued a career as a permissions editor for textbook publishers for many years. Garner is also an artist whose work is exhibited in galleries in Southern California where she lives.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Prologue	ix
	Maps	xii
1	Stratford, September 1938-August 1939	1
2	Changes, August 1939-September 1939	17
3	Early Days in Berlin, Fall 1939-Spring 1940	25
4	Hitler Youth and a Visit to Stolp, Spring 1940-Summer 1941	40
5	Entrance into High School, Summer 1941-Winter 1941/42	56
6	First Communion and Evacuation to Bansin, January 1942-Fall 1942	71
	A Family Album, Part 1	91
7	Childhood Lost, January 1943-March 1943	95
8	A Special Birthday Present and Back to Stolp, Spring 1943-Fall 1943	112
9	Move to Waldenburg, Winter 1943-Summer 1944	129
10	Waldenburg, Late Summer 1944-Winter 1944/45	145
11	A Dying Berlin and the Last Battle, January 1945-April 1945	162
12	Life under the Russians, April 1945-May 1945	178
13	Fifteen and I'm Going to Live, May 1945-Summer 1945	192
14	Occupied Berlin, Summer 1945-Spring 1946	209
	A Family Album, Part 2	225
15	Return to America, Spring 1946-July 1946	231
16	Home Is the Stranger, July 1946-December 1946	248
	Epilogue	263
	Author's Note	265

Editorial Reviews

"This powerful coming-of-age tale is told with intensity and also with the freshness of teenage years remembered: there are repeated brutal bombings and countless brushes with death; there are also friends, holiday celebrations, and two babies born to the family during the war, who engage Eleanor's love and protection. There's also a much anticipated return to the U. S. It all coalesces into a must-have memoir about an aspect of wartime survival not often written about in children's literature."—Booklist

From the Publisher

Gr 6-8-When the author was nine, her parents elected to return to their native Germany, where her father had been offered an attractive job. Though it was 1939 and Hitler had already invaded Czechoslovakia, her family saw only opportunity in their decision. While they were crossing the Atlantic, war was declared and their emigration became irrevocable. Garner was not to see America again until she was 16. The family members spent much of the war in Berlin and suffered hardships and privations and lived in fear. Yet, it is to Garner's credit that she does not make them out to be more heroic than they were. They escaped bombs, bullets, conscription, malnutrition, and molestation. Every member of her immediate family survived the war. This required considerable resourcefulness, occasional bravery, and an extraordinary amount of luck. It is curious that when the author was 13, she stumbled upon the concentration camp at Waldenburg, but didn't mention it to her mother. She says that she wondered, "What is this place?-A prison camp? Who are these people? Are they the ones who work in the factory?" Even as an adult writing this memoir, she doesn't confront the truth that this was a concentration camp. The writing is pedestrian and somewhat dry and the characters are memorable only for their ordinariness and pettiness. Still, this is a unique survival story that libraries may want to own.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

School Library Journal