A Place They Called Home - Donna Swarthout

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Résumé :
Dena, a New Hampshire retiree, feels at home in Germany the moment the vineyards across the Rhine come into her view. Maya, a journalist for Deutsche Welle, pursued German citizenship to boost her career in Berlin. And Yermi, an Israeli writer, has a response for people who question his decision to live in the country that murdered his relatives. In Berlin I feel a sense of belonging - to the culture, the values - and I feel welcomed here. A Place They Called Home is the first book to give a voice to the descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors who have chosen to restore their German citizenship. They each have different reasons for doing so, but they all reclaimed something that was taken from their families.

Donna Swarthout has collected personal stories reflecting a quite unexpected phenomenon: descendants from formerly persecuted German-Jewish families are reclaiming German citizen?ship. These men and women have moved forward from their tragic past though they carry the pain and grief of their parents and grandparents with them. They trace their roots back to the country of Goethe and Einstein, recapturing family legacies and discovering a new Germany. Will present-day Germany become 'a place called home' for these individuals too? The answer is left open. -Julius H. Schoeps, chair of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation