Book Description

How does a young German who has been a perfunctory member of the Hitler Youth & has competed in Nazi-organized athletic competitions become, in the space of two years, an eighty-pound, tuberculosis-stricken concentration camp escapee? In this larger-than-life memoir, Walter Meyer leads readers from one harrowing moment to the next as he recounts his experiences during & after Hitler's reign. After a brief membership in the Hitler Youth, Meyer rebelled by joining a relatively harmless subversive group that focused its efforts on pranks against the local SS. During World War II, he was thrown in jail for stealing shoes, receiving a sentence of one to three years. The sixteen-year-old Meyer's refusal to conform to prison regulations resulted in his spending a good deal of time in solitary confinement for foiled escape attempts. Unbeknownst to his family, Meyer's fiery spirit eventually landed him in a Nazi work camp. Transported to Ravensbruck, he was forced to work under grueling conditions in a quarry. He developed tuberculosis. Against the advice of others, he revealed his illness to the camp doctor. Knowing he would soon deteriorate & die in the camp, he again plotted his escape. This time he succeeded. Upon returning home to Dusseldorf, Meyer lamented the pallor that had spread throughout the town & the country itself. After recovering his health, he regained his youthful lust for adventure. Meyer began a whirlwind odyssey, ducking into train cars & stowing away on ships, occasionally landing in jail for traveling without a passort-from France to Spain, Belgium to Holland, & finally to South America-in pursuit of something other than the aftermath of war. Meyer's memoir gives insight into the climate in Germany during World War II & in the defeated nation after the war. His experience as a non-Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps provides an enlightening & varied perspective to the Holocaust dialogue.