Everything We Forgot: Retracing My Father's Escape
by (germany) Christiane Hofmann
About This Novel
"I am the daughter of a refugee child." A writer comparable to Alexievich, a documentary work that examines war from a female perspective. "Der Spiegel" bestseller list, Leipzig Book Prize finalist. In January 1945, the German army withdrew from Poland. More than 1 million German civilians and more than 500,000 German soldiers retreated to Western Europe, resulting in a large number of refugee children. The author is a descendant of refugee children, and his parents are German refugees who were expelled from their hometown during the war. My father was 9 years old when the escape took place, and he said nothing about it after that. Not only did the village in the past change its name, but its nationality was transferred from Germany to Poland. At the same time 75 years later, the father became critically ill and the daughter embarked on their escape path again... This is a history of family separation and a tragic song of the national soul. The book is centered on Silesia, the triangular area at the junction of the three countries. It combines the experiences of the author's family, what they saw along the way, and the oral accounts of those who experienced it. It combines historical tracking with current narratives, travel and history, and movingly reproduces the contradictions and faults in the German-Polish-Russian relations. It provides another possibility to enter history by re-measuring with both feet.
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