Born In The Cradle Of War: A Personal Journey into a Xenophobia-torn Past - Paperback

by Erika Strupp-Martin (Author)

Born in Germany in 1944, Erika lives in a small Rhineland village where people are still recovering from WWII. She lives with her father in her grandparents' small multigenerational house, but there's never enough food. Her mother and father are divorced, and Erika's mother left Germany with her new husband to live in Canada when Erika was in a sanitarium with tuberculosis.
But after she recovers, her father returns her to live with him and his new wife in her grandparents' tiny house. But the townspeople and children shun her because they think she is contagious. Within her own home, she is beaten regularly and locked into a stairwell closet by her stepmother for not obeying.
In 1954, Erika's father sends her to live with her mother and stepfather in Toronto. At ten years of age, she sits alone in an airplane for a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, heading for Canada. Things don't go well in Canada because many people still have strong anti-German sentiments, and Erika feels like an outsider and an alien for being labeled a "Nazi."
At twelve, Erika's mother and stepfather immigrate with her to Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.. Again, she is the recipient of prejudice and discrimination from kids at school who call her an ugly Nazi scag and other insulting names because she is German. Feeling alienated and alone, Erika turns within herself to fight the demons plaguing her since early childhood.
Ever since leaving Germany, she's been tormented by a repeating dream about returning to her homeland, but in her dreams, she never makes it because her trip is always met with a disaster, like an airplane crashing or a boat sinking, or some such thing.
As an adult, Erika's childhood trauma severely affects her life. She realizes that, just like the Holocaust survivors, she too is a victim of a xenophobia-torn past by people in her hometown shunning her because she had tuberculosis. And later, in America, people shun her for being an offspring of the "Nazis." That, coupled with her family problems, makes her feel inferior, marginalized, and alien.
Gut-wrenching and powerful, Born In The Cradle Of War: A Personal Journey Into A Xenophobia-torn Past will touch the hearts and minds of readers.