Separated by Worlds: Letters from Nazi Germany to a Distant Son

By Grant Profant McAllister Jr., Fiona Burdette, Charles S. Thomas

Separated by Worlds is the family letters to Kurt Baum, provided in both the original German and in English translation. The letters recount the story of a middle-class Jewish family from Bamberg, Germany during the Nazi era. Josef and Marie Baum sent their seventeen-year-old son Kurt to begin a new life in America. The resulting separation, presented in a stream of letters between 1937 and 1941, was as emotional as it was physical. Kurt's struggles to adapt to his new circumstances--difficulties with his American sponsor, failure at a vocational school, and halting steps toward becoming a "normal" American--were met with little understanding from his parents, who were enduring a steadily worsening existence at the hands of the Nazis. His father's desperate pleas to Kurt prior to his forced deportation and murder constitute a final rupture in this poignant story. Richly illustrated, the letters are annotated and contextualized by several essays.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1978848625
• ISBN13: 9781978848627
• Release Date: June 2027
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher