Alfred J. Lakritz, Katrin Ciaffa, and Peter Bromberg on A Novel Idea

A Novel Idea

Stories from the devastating times in Europe during World War II, —told to us by the people who lived through them, speak loudly to us in our current moment of brutal wars and suffering people.

Suzanne Lang talks with Alfred J. Lakritz on his book Adieu: A Memoir of Holocaust Survival. His warm and moving tale relates his separation from his parents, and then the many people and experiences that kept Alfred and his brother safe from the Nazis in occupied France, including stays on remote farms and even in Lourdes. In 1950, at the age of 16, Alfred, miraculously reunited with his mother, emigrates to Oakland California where he learns English, and despite not having much formal education, excels in school, attends Berkeley and eventually becomes a successful lawyer in Los Angeles.

Also featured is Katrin Ciaffa, translator of Hannelore Krollpfeiffer’s autobiographical novel We Lived in Berlin: A Story About the End of the War. First published in German in 1947, re-issued in 2007, and now translated into English, it’s the story of two sisters in their early twenties making their way in Berlin near the end of the war, who live in a bombed out building amidst daily air raids. More concerned with the fate of their prized record collection and their romantic flings than the fact that their Jewish neighbors disappear overnight, they are not Nazi’s, they are skeptical, at times cynical, but they are utterly complacent.

Suzanne also talks with Peter Bromberg, Associate Director of EveryLibrary (everylibrary.org), an organization that supports and defends libraries nationwide, including efforts against book banning and illicit political interference in public, school, and college libraries.