This confessional story is about how, in addition to the horrible sacrifice of millions of Jews and thousands of Gypsies and other “undesirables” in the Holocaust, World War II claimed an entire generation of young people. The author explains that to under stand how Hitler captured the youth of Germany, one has to know that in Germany, children were second class citizens. They spoke only when spoken to and ate the leftovers after the adults had finished. Hitler provided the attention that young people did not receive at home. They were soon indoctrinated thoroughly into his beliefs, reinforced further by their education and the propaganda machine. Hitler, however, only pretended to give power to the youth; they were really his slaves, and only belatedly, and often never, did they realize that they had literally sworn their lives to him.
It took many years for the author to fathom what had happened to Germany and why; and for Germans not to blame the Jews for starting the war and for the bombing, as the propaganda machine proclaimed. In her later years, in America, while mourning for a friend, Mahlendorf began to remember and grieve for the friends and family of her childhood. For years, she had been teaching the literature of Germany in America, but now she began to delve under the surface of her earlier teaching to explore her Hitler Youth experience and to gain a deeper insight into her personal implication in Nazism. This is a brave, honest account of a young girl’s experience in Nazi Germany, and especially of how women and girls were exploited. The author also tells, throughout, what the Germans knew and didn’t know about the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors and how no one was allowed to talk about this without suffering for it. Finally, she writes about her eventual disillusionment and feelings of guilt. There are many layers of story and meaning in this courageous, painful memoir.
