Beyond the Green World of Childhood

Like all children Stefan lives in a world of his own-a carefree world of his own fantasies. But Stefan is the son of a Jewish lawyer in pre-World War II Germany . .. Why were those men in brown uniforms chasing that lad? Why did he deny being a Jew when he was so ashamed of himself afterwards? When such questions intrude the quiet security of his world is shattered. Doubts, fear, the first stirring of young love-new emotions enter Stefan's world and take possession of him. He learns the meaning and the force of fear, what it means to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany ... to see his friends disappear, his father taken away; and finally he too takes leave of home and country. In this collection of reminiscences the author captures with delicate simplicity the mood of childhood and of growing up in a time of fear.

Born in Berlin in 1924, Walter Kaufmann was adopted at the age of two by parents who fell victim to the Nazis when the boy was fifteen years old. The lad managed to escape to Australia. There he lived until 1955 and in that year, a man grown, he at last returned to the city of his birth... The long, lean years in between were spent in fruit farming, as a soldier during the war, as a street photographer, a docker, a seaman. It was during this time that he began to write and a first novel, Voices in the Storm, has since been published in several languages. A second book was followed by a series of articles about Japan where he visited extensively. All of his writings reflect the diversified and rich experience of his life and his travels...