Margot Richens

Margot Richens grew up in Nazi Germany. In school she learned obedience and self-repression. Her table grace: “Fold your hands, bow your head, and thank the Fuehrer for your bread.” She belonged to the Hitler Youth, and she sold blue advent candles for Hitler. During the war, she survived the bombing and escaped the raping of two million females as Germany collapsed. Then Margot speaks of infestations of lice and scabies, of no heat and stealing coal, of root canals without anesthesia, of eating dogs, even of cannibalism. She speaks of refugee camps and deportations to Russia. Every male seemed a predator, and Communist oppression replaced Nazi oppression as the Soviets “liberated everything dear to us.” Then came her harrowing escape westward. Through all the terror, the love for her mother runs through her memoir like a golden thread—the saving uplift to the benumbing cruelties of the Nazis and Soviets, the belittling unkindness of her father, and the uncaring thoughtlessness of the alcoholic, Canadian soldier she married. In 1955 the newly-weds arrived in Canada where Margot, bearing the weight of past and present, began her search for self-expression and her own light...