Haggblade's eyewitness account will likely be regarded as one of the best accounts ever written about post-World War II Germany.
There have been many memoirs written about WWII and the Holocaust. Perhaps none are as interesting as 'Trauterose: Growing Up in Postwar Munich' by Elisabeth Haggblade. Her remarkable memoir is certain to become one of the definitive accounts of post-Hitler Germany, not only for its exquisite prose and the author's intimate encounters with notable figures but also for the sweeping global perspective that Haggblade brings to her narrative. ‘Trauterose' was awarded the IndieReader Discovery Award in the Memoir category. In addition, the cover was awarded First Place Non-Fiction in The Authors Show 2024 Book Cover Awards.
'Trauterose' is the compelling first-person account of Elisabeth Haggblade, who was orphaned at birth at the height of World War II and spent the first eleven years of her life under the care of a former S.S. officer and his family.
Like many she knew and met during her formative years, Elisabeth was marked both physically and psychologically by the traumatic events of the war and its aftermath, where negotiating daily life during the most tenuous time in Germany's history often felt like a balancing act. Yet through it all, faith and the help of others prevailed.
"The late Pope Benedict XVI, known then as Mr. Ratzinger, taught catechism in our fourth-grade elementary school in Munich for a short while," Haggblade stated. "I wrote to him after he left because we missed him. He wrote back a long letter admonishing us to start our lives right. Even as Pope in Rome, he always wrote back.
"Christine Kaufmann, the German actress, was a student for a little while in our elementary school, making a glamorous impression before leaving for more acting and later marrying Tony Curtis.
"My foster father was dismissed from the S.S. He wanted out, but one did not resign from the S.S. One was shot. As he told me, while serving as a door guard for a special S.S. officers' function, my foster father confronted a man trying to enter in civilian clothes who refused to show his ID. A futile exchange of words ended in my foster father grabbing him and tossing him onto the sidewalk. The man filed a complaint with the highest orders to which he belonged. It put the S.S. in a dilemma, so they decided to eject my much lower-ranking foster father from the party.
"He was incarcerated in Dachau by the American Allies, where the Jews had been before him. He stood trial, where Jewish people defended him, verifying that he let their mail pass without inspection. My foster father was freed.
"Today the jog of American athletes entering the stadium brings back seeing a newsreel showing participants in the Hitler assassination attempt in 1944. They entered a cellar in Berlin in a jog, wearing only warm-up pants (which were later pulled off), lining up below iron hooks before being strung up with piano wire to hang.
“My mother's house was in a village near Garmisch-Partenkirchen (the Winter Olympics took place there in 1936), where I spent some time helping her with her B&B business and came away with not very good memories.
"Mine is perhaps not so much a Holocaust book, as I describe the long reluctance of the public and businesses to confront past atrocities; e.g., the employment of slave laborers. I write about the present recovery of stolen art during the Hitler era and Germany’s efforts to educate the young about the Holocaust."
In short, 'Trauterose' is the account of one person's search for humanity in existence—a cautionary tale on the inherited guilt created by rampant nationalism, and a painfully honest and often humorous view of the world through the eyes of a young woman who found her way to freedom and purpose.
Readers and reviewers have expressed praise for Trauterose. Craig Jones of IndieReader wrote, "TRAUTEROSE (Growing Up in Postwar Munich) by Elisabeth Haggblade offers an uncompromising, moving, and elegiac memoir of a deprived childhood in postwar Germany." Midwest Book Review said, "Libraries seeking powerful, personal memoirs that hold political and social lessons and insights will find Trauterose a study in adaptation, survival, and growth. It also deserves attention from young adult and adult book clubs seeking memoirs that reflect not just individual experience, but a sense of the culture and times."
One Amazon review stated, "The book is extremely well written, and I would recommend it highly." Another said, "I highly recommend this book. It will touch your heart." Another wrote, "It offers an unforgettable window into a time and place that few Americans know about."
Elisabeth Haggblade is available for media interviews and can be reached at don@freepublicitygroup.com. 'Trauterose' is available in both print and ebook forms at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Elisabeth-Haggblade/author/B0CTRXLF9G?. More information is available at her website at https://www.trauteroseauthor.com.
About Elisabeth Haggblade:
Elisabeth Haggblade holds a B.A. in German, a B.A. in Russian, a Master's in Linguistics from California State University, Fresno, and a PhD in English Philology from the Freie Universität Berlin. She retired from teaching part-time English and Linguistics at California State Universities and the Freie Universität Berlin. Her publications began with academic articles and book reviews as well as book reviews of fiction in The Los Angeles Times. She resides in California.
Contact:
Elisabeth Haggblade
don@freepublicitygroup.com
https://www.trauteroseauthor.com
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