cover image A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic

A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic

Stephanie Orfali, Sebastian Orfali. Ronin Publishing (CA), $9.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-914171-10-2

More likely to be zealous patriots than devoutly religious, German Jews often were bewildered by the Nazi horror. Orfali, born in 1911 in Nuremberg, was the member of a typically assimilated Jewish family, and here, using diaries and memory, she touchingly recreates the joys, the tragedies, the daily routines and the ultimate fate of her family. One of her most engaging characters: Emilie, the bilious grandmother, who was an ardent fan of Wagner and of crazy Bavarian King Ludwig II. The author, who escaped to Israel, recounts events with the fierce loyalty of kinship but with the strange detachment of a survivor. (Two of Emilie's five daughters committed suicide and a third was transported to Auschwitz.) More than anyone else in the family, Orfali was awakened to a sense of Jewish pride during her difficult coming of age. (July)