In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

227 D Chapter Sixty-Eight d disComfort and neW life The realization that I would be doomed to live among people who had lost all moral orientation was more devastating than the duration of the Nazi regime. The once so close circle of friends,this small,death-defying community of human beings dedicated to resist and fight evil,had begun to drift apart.With the shared enemy gone,the group simply ceased to exist, irrevocably and forever. Everyone had gone in different directions.A common past, I came to accept with profound sadness, did not necessarily mean a common future.While united during times when religious convictions, political affiliations, and social standing had been of no importance, it now seemed that we were separated by light years. When the staunch right-wing-oriented KonradAdenauer was elected as the first Chancellor of the newly established Federal German Republic, it soon became evident that his regime was crawling with erstwhile Nazis. Seventy-five percent of the former Nazi-infested Foreign Ministry joined the new one. As ambassadors, they were sent to the far corners of the globe, particularly to South America, where they were welcomed (or rather, welcomed back) with open arms. Only eleven years after committing his heinous crimes against humanity inAuschwitz,Dr.Josef Mengele,having fled to SouthAmerica,received a brand new passport,handed to him in BuenosAires by theWest German ambassador toArgentina,who must have been well aware of the recipient’s identity. Criticized by a few constituents who were outraged about his choice of ex-Nazis in key government positions,the pious Catholic Adenauer dryly remarked that “since there was no clean water to cook with, he had to use dirty water.” It was as simple as that. Hitler’s effort to strip Germany of those few among the intelligentsia who had refused to turn rotten had been a thorough one, ending with the massacres after the July 20 assassination attempt; there just were not enough decent people left to take over. The Nazis’ bloody harvest had claimed most of the lives of those morally qualified for responsible positions in the new government. My mother was the recipient of three different pensions, the bulk of which came from the House of Hohenzollern; two smaller amounts consisted of restitution money by the state,to which she—a“victim of Fascism”and,grotesquely enough,at the same time a“victim of Bolshevism”—was entitled. With not even a remote chance in sight to leave the country, I reluctantly accepted a job offer with Heute magazine in Munich, published and edited by the US Military Government . This position as a budding journalist would eventually enable me to immigrate Part two 228 to the United States. However, something unexpected happened; I fell in love with the editor ,held in high professional esteem.The only son of a well-known German painter and art professor and a Jewish mother,he also enjoyed the legendary reputation of being absolutely immune to a woman’s charms. Immune? This term had the same effect on me that music has on a circus horse. I decided to ignore warnings that he had been divorced at least three times and dove headfirst into a new adventure.A few months later, I found myself married to this high-strung, fascinating man, who was seventeen years my senior. One year later, we had a son, and shortly thereafter, his father and I split up—his fourth divorce, my first. Too late I had realized that neither fascination nor common interests in vitally important matters could keep two completely different and equally difficult people together. I named my son Ulrich Marcus—Ulrich after my father. My son’s beautifully shaped head uncannily resembled the grandfather he was never to know. To me, more than just a name had returned. The exquisite joy over his appearance surpassed anything I had ever experienced before. He was born in Berlin, the city where my own difficult childhood had taken place,darkened by Hitler’s gigantic shadow,which would continue to haunt the world for generations to come. I was determined not to let it darken my child’s future. He was not going to grow up among a people who had brought so much heartache to the entire world and certainly to my own immediate family. Waiting for my personal Godot was over, and the idea of taking my boy to the United States began to take shape in my head; the only crucial...

Share