Return to Dresden (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography)

By Maria Ritter

Autobiography -- World War II Why did the German people tolerate the Nazi madness? Maria Ritter's life is haunted by the ever-painful, never-answerable "German Question." Who knew? What was known?... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578065968
• ISBN13: 9781578065967
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Stories until now untold

One way of dealing with events that bring one to a daily struggle is to tell a story, and Maria Ritter has told a fascinating story, captivating at every turn, and elucidating a period in her life that helps us all in overcoming the struggles of our own pasts. This book is one of several appearing in these days about the world of the writer's childhood. We have heard it from those who suffered through the holocaust, we have heard it from the point of view of Europe coming out of the destruction of World War II, but here is another account of one who was a child, severely wounded in the bombing of Dresden, seeking to find her past, and either forgive it to redeem it in the light of all that history has shown about the power and abuse of Hitler in Nazi Germany. I recommend highly this journey along with its therapeutic methods to those who would follow in this journey or understand better the children of World War II.

Moving Memoir

This book touched me on many levels. First, it was eye opening to learn more about the effect of WWII from the prospective of a child in Germany. To learn not only about the raw experience of war itself, but the struggles and shame after the war. Issues that are complex for anyone, let alone a child who was given no explanation for what had happened. Second, it is a story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit. Third, it discusses the importance of coming to terms with the struggles of the past and learning to be at peace with them.

Both heartbreaking and inspirational

Maria Ritter returns to Germany as an adult, and through the recollections of her early childhood, recalls the horrors and devastation brought to her homeland through the Hitler regime and the post WWII years under the communists.With her father fighting in the German Army, her family becomes refugees from both the Russians in the east, and Allied bombs from the sky. Making numerous moves to try and ensure their safety, they go to Dresden and become victims of the firebombing in February, 1945. Dealing with the reality that her father may never return to them, her brave mother takes the initiative to escape to the west, leaving behind loved ones in the east during the post war years...and the resulting story of their escape and subsequent life is one of inspiration and encouragement. Coming to terms with much of the heartbreaking events she suffered as a young child, makes this read a heart rending and touching memorial to all the innocents who have had nothing whatsoever to do with politics and war.