Anke Otto-wolf

My Peace of the Wall: an American-german Life Shaped by Cataclysmic Events in World History Anke Otto-wolf

A chance meeting with a 'Raisin Bomber' (Berlin air Lift 1948) crew member in August 2009, contributed to 'Becoming Whole Again'. Born in Berlin, the author shares the darkness of having lived through WWII's nightly air raids in Berlin as a five year old, and consequently leaving her childhood behind. This is a personal journey through nearly seven decades of German history uniquely captured in vignettes, short stories, and poetry; each triggered by ordinary events in the author's American life. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, a 15-inch TV screen thousand of miles away from Berlin, in Virginia, was her connection to saying again "Ich bin ein Berliner ( I am a Berliner" (JFK 1963). Influenced by her courageous parents who were resisting the Nazi regime, and effectively saved Jewish friends, her poetry reflects an emotional passage. Masterly written, she confronts the reader with detailed historical facts intertwining family agony with little known oppression tactics of former East Germany. This fascinating historical account is a documentary about how an ordinary action like slicing a stick of butter into little squares, can trigger an eruption of memories past, linking to the present as an American living in the US.