Home Alone In America

Editora:

Elizabeth Dost

Código:

491_9781945271045

Vendido e entregue por Um Livro

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It was September 1946, just a year after the war’s end, when an American-born German youth stepped off the ship in New York City. In a hasty decision, precipitated by the chaotic aftermath of World War II, Helmut’s well-meaning parents had sent their gifted teenager alone to the United States to claim the supposed advantages of his American citizenship—and hopefully pave the way for their own early immigration. Little did they dream that nine years of separation lay ahead!The letters exchanged during those years by Helmut Dost in the United States and his family in Berlin tell the suspense-filled story of a young man’s unanticipated struggles and challenges in the country of his birth. At the same time they give us glimpses of life in beleagured West Berlin during the tense days of the early Cold War.The pursuit of Helmut’s single-minded mission—to enable his family to join him in America—is marked by many ironies and unexpected twists of fate. Through the letters we witness the gradual transformation of an impressionable German schoolboy into a thoroughly Americanized veteran of the Korean War. The letters follow Helmut from a lost opportunity to study at a prestigious academy in Vermont, his apprenticeship to a German shoemaker in San Diego, three years of grueling toil on a chicken farm, news of his father’s tragic death, and the redeeming experience of five years in the United States Marine Corps.The long-delayed reunion with his mother and brother in 1955 finally freed Helmut up to enter the University of California on the GI Bill of Rights, which would ultimately lead to a Ph.D. in physics and a career in defense-related projects.

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