A Place They Called Home

Dena, a New Hampshire retiree, feels at home in Germany the moment the vineyards across the Rhine come into her view. Maya, a journalist for Deutsche Welle, pursued German citizenship to boost her career in Berlin. And Yermi, an Israeli writer, has a response for people who question his decision to live in the country that murdered his relatives. “In Berlin I feel a sense of belonging – to the culture, the values – and I feel welcomed here." A Place They Called Home is the first book to give a voice to the descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors who have chosen to restore their German citizenship. They each have different reasons for doing so, but they all reclaimed something that was taken from their families.

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Donna Swarthout has collected personal stories reflecting a quite unexpected phenomenon: descendants from formerly persecuted German-Jewish families are reclaiming German citizen­ship. These men and women have moved forward from their tragic past though they carry the pain and grief of their parents and grandparents with them. They trace their roots back to the country of Goethe and Einstein, recapturing family legacies and discovering a new Germany. Will present-day Germany become ‘a place called home’ for these individuals too? The answer is left open.

–Julius H. Schoeps, chair of the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation

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Inspiring and gut-wrenching. These deeply personal accounts of a modern Jewish generation struggling to re-establish family roots in a new Germany while paying honor to their martyred forebears tell a timeless tale of human redemption—the homecoming.

–Ralph Blumenthal, journalist and author of Miracle at Sing Sing

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Donna Swarthhout’s book opens minds to a difficult history while tugging at your heartstrings.”

–Eugene DuBow, Founding director of the AJC Berlin

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This book offers the reader a compelling view of a better and hopefully more peaceful future between Germans and Jews.

–Sharon Adler, publisher at AVIVA-Berlin.de

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An important facet of the history of the special relationship of Jews to Germany.

–Lorenz S. Beckhardt, author of Der Jude mit dem Hakenkreuz