Dena Rueb Romero is the author of the new book All for You: A World War II Family Memoir of Love, Separation, and Loss. She lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Q: Why did you decide to write this book about your family history?
A: The catalyst for the book was the accidental discovery of a box stored at my parents’ house.
The box contained letters I had never seen before: from my Jewish grandparents in Germany to my father in the United States; typed copies of my father’s replies; love letters between my father and my mother. The letters revealed ordinary people swept along by enormous events, human stories that needed to be told.
I never met my German Jewish grandparents, but I began to know them through their letters. I could almost hear their voices, as if they were speaking to me. I felt compelled to tell their story and that of my parents, to show my grandparents as more than Holocaust victims and to make sure they weren’t forgotten.
Of course, I cannot change the past, but perhaps acknowledging the past, to quote Eva Hoffman (After Such Knowledge), “can act as a form of affective, symbolic justice.” Writing this book was my attempt to do just that.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I had always listened to family stories and anecdotes about my parents’ German past.
Besides books and New York Times articles, I interviewed people in my father’s hometown who had known my family. I traveled to the Isle of Man where my mother spent eight months during the war and did research in the Manx National Heritage archives.
My father had written some narratives and made a few cassettes about his life which, along with his application to the German government for restitution, were most helpful. Official state archives in Germany and places that figure in the story were also part of my search.
What most surprised me was discovering why my father’s sister and her husband didn’t leave Germany, which differed from what my mother originally told me.
Another surprise was realizing that my parents in their 30s were sexual beings with sexual desires, something I should have expected but was embarrassed to see in their letters. My writing group insisted that this topic needed to be in the book, that it was unrealistic to leave it out. I followed the group’s advice.
Q: The author Mimi Schwartz said of the book, “Rueb Romero explores, in so many new ways, what it means to be a refugee with loved ones left behind, waiting for you to rescue them.” What do you think of that description?
A: Mimi, herself the daughter of refugees, told me that the information about my father’s experience was new to her. I am especially grateful for Mimi’s comment.
Although safe in the United States, my father faced multiple personal challenges just as the world was falling into war, which added to his stress. He had to stay healthy so that he could work, he had to work to survive, and he had to make decisions about his priorities.
He lived with constant worry, anxiety, with hopes raised several times only to be dashed. These feelings took a physical and psychological toll.
Mimi’s description, therefore, gets to the heart of the story, which is not just about love and loyalty but also about the loss of home and country and starting over.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: In his memoir Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner states, “One must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all-too-rare ones of unknown individuals.” It is these biographies, to paraphrase Haffner, not “official academic history” which show how events affect a person’s life.
I would like readers to consider the book a biography of people touched by major historical events. I hope the reader will gain insight into what it means to be persecuted for who you are and consequently forced to leave your homeland for a foreign land.
If not empathy, if the reader gains some sympathy for those fleeing violence and repression for a better place today, then my book was worth writing.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My focus at the moment is getting the book to the public. After all, I wrote it to make my parents’ and grandparents’ story known.
When time allows, I have a few ideas I would like to work on. In her early career as a children’s nurse, my mother was employed in Jewish homes. I want to research whether anyone from these families survived and if not, what happened to them.
Another project is about a young German boy who survived the war as a hidden child in Belgium. Both these stories need to be told.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: In 2007 I applied for and received German citizenship. My son and grandchildren were also entitled to this “restored” citizenship. Some people might say “why in the world, after everything that happened in Germany, would you want to be German?”
I answer that my father believed in having options. Perhaps if he had had more options, things would have turned out differently. I believe I did the right thing in obtaining this right.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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