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Prize-winning author Rebecca Donner Zooms with GenShoah SWFL
Prize-winning author Rebecca Donner Zooms with GenShoah SWFL
Rebecca Donner, prizewinning author of “All the Frequent Troubles of our Days,” Zoomed in from her Harvard office to talk with GenShoah members about this book and how she conducted the intensive, meticulous research required for this non-fiction story. Rebecca has won many prestigious awards, including the 2022 National Book Critics Award for Biography and the Chautauqua Prize for the story of her great-great aunt, Mildred Harnack, an American who was part of the Nazi resistance in Germany and was beheaded in 1943 on Hitler’s orders.
Historians identify Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story remained largely unknown until Donner wrote it. “Fusing elements of biography and political thriller, Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, testimony of survivors and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, enthralling story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.”
Donner, who was brought to GenShoah SWFL by Estelle Kafer, was gracious with her time, not only explaining how she acquired the documents necessary for her research and how she met one of the key characters in the book, but she also answered every question posed to her by those participating in the program.
While there are thousands of books about the Holocaust, both fiction and non-fiction, this book will reveal many facts that even the most well-read individual is likely unaware, and this tragic, heartbreaking story is one that will stay with the reader and should be shared.
Kafer will be selecting books for next season’s GenShoah book discussions and information will be in future GenShoah newsletters as well as Federation Star and L’Chayim. If you would like to receive the GenShoah SWFL newsletter, email GenShoahSWFL@HMCEC.org.
