Things got off to a rocky start when Brian and I arrived at our local Rathaus to renew our German passports last month. With the stern tone of many a German bureaucrat, Frau O. admonished us that we needed two appointments rather than one to complete our business and that my passport photo did not…
Book Royalties: Giving Back
The term 'royalty' has been associated with rights granted by a sovereign ruler to an individual since the late 15th century. That is a fitting term for the share of profit given by the publisher who has almost complete control over the fate of an author's body of work that represents many hours of hard,…
Shelf Life
I never expected fame or fortune from a book about German Jews reclaiming their German citizenship. In fact, the positive reviews and publicity for A Place They Called Home quite exceeded my expectations. My eleven co-authors and I, most of us novices in the publishing world, were elated that our stories reached, and even touched, an audience of…
BBC’s ‘Heart and Soul’ Comes to Berlin
My efforts to find a venue for the Berlin book launch of A Place They Called Home had left me frustrated until I met the team at Archetyp Cafe. Owned by a couple of brothers from a German Jewish family, the cafe became our living room for last month's lively and intimate Sunday afternoon conversation…
Berlin Book Launch – March 17th
“A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany” Edited by Donna Swarthout (in English) WHEN: Sunday, March 17, 3pm-5pmWHERE: Archetyp Café, Marienburger Str. 5, 10405 Berlin Donna Swarthout and co-authors will discuss their stories of returning to Germany and reclaiming the German citizenship that was stripped from their…
January News
My recent 'featured' Times of Israel column, I'm Jewish, American and happy to live in Berlin, sparked some outrage and hateful messages from people like Nanette ("I spit on your post!" she screamed into my inbox). Ah well, naysayers like Nanette can't seem to digest positive reports from Jews who live in Germany. All the…
A Place They Called Home: Event Photos
A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany was introduced at the Leo Baeck Institute's Center for Jewish History in New York on December 10th. Yale historian David Sorkin gave introductory remarks, I spoke about the development and significance of the book, and we had a lively panel…
December 10th Book Release
A Place They Called Home. Reclaiming Citizenship. Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany, my edited collection of essays published by Berlinica and supported by the Stiftung Zurückgeben, will appear on December 10, 2018. This is the first book to give a voice to the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who reclaim German…
No Time Wasted
Timing can mean everything in life, making for sheer bliss when it's right and dashed hopes when it isn't. This year I set my sights on completing a book manuscript in time to take a ten day summer vacation in Italy with my family. Whether from due diligence or dumb luck, somehow it worked out.…
The Way Out — And Back
Spending part of last week inside the University of Luxembourg's imposing steel skyscraper, situated next door to an even more imposing former steel manufacturing facility was a little eerie. Persistently gray and rainy skies rounded out the steely gray landscape. But the engaging group of historians at the conference The Way Out: Microhistories of Flight from Nazi Germany kept me in good spirits and the feverish…
Donna Swarthout 