Bastards, Bitches, and Heroes: a Memoir

This book describes the horrors of our family which started during World War II in Germany, and continued for years thereafter because our father abandoned us. After twenty court processes, involving two dozen lawyers and judges, our family lost everything. My little brother, Siggi, and I suffered severe illnesses, starvation and homelessness. When we were about five and seven, our mother forced us to scavenge pig's innards from a manure pile. With the ever-present wire whip that she usually kept pinned to her skirt, she enticed us to eat them. A judge evicted us from our home. On Christmas Eve Day. For one year we squatted in a stranger's attic without water, sewer, heat, power or hope. When we were fourteen and sixteen, our relatives invited us to America. We now thought that our lives would improve: Cowboys and Indians! But when we later arrived on their dairy farms, they enslaved us. I was not allowed to bathe but once a year. At the age of twenty-one, I still lived without water, heat, power, or outhouse. After we finally escaped, Siggi and I worked our way through college, became American citizens and world travelers.