An Irregular Girlhood In Hitler’s Shadow

In the mid-1930s, author Vera Haldy-Regier’s father, a minor, recalcitrant diplomat in Hitler’s government, is banished to a post in Vladivostok, Russia, and later to the former German lease territory of Tsingtao, China.While openly critical of the Nazis, he nonetheless remains employed by the German Foreign Office until the end of the war. Together with his wife, he is instrumental in obtaining food and money for the small community of Jewish refugees that fled to Tsingtao, and endures several threats to his life from Nazi officials. After Hitler’s defeat, the family loses nearly all its possessions to the Chinese revolutionaries before escaping to the West on an American troop transporter.Their early years in America are filled with severe financial need. But in the midst of hardship, there are gifts of love, support, and friendship that became beacons of enduring hope. Haldy-Regier’s poignant memoir traces the family’s path from Germany to America via Italy, Turkey, Russia, Japan, China and Cuba. It carries triumphant messages of love, forgiveness, and gratitude for gifts gathered amidst the ruins of war and the pain and injustice of intolerance.'As one who knew the author’s family in China, I was deeply moved by this beautifully written, honest account of the triumph of a young girl’s spirit in her ever-tilting world.'-Eva Pulverman Jellin 3