Book Recommendation

The Guest House  

The Witnesses at Nuremberg  A Memoir by Countess Ingeborg Kalnoky

 

 How many different aspects of the years before, during, and after WWII can there be? 

It was a period of history covering twenty years, more or less, that changed the world forever, and this is why amazing and mesmerizing true stories continue to emerge from the events of those decades. So the answer to the above questions can't be answered with any accuracy; the number continues to increase even now.
  In August of 1945 Countess Kalnoky found herself a homeless and and penniless refuge. She had just given birth to a baby girl in a Nuremberg hospital when she received an amazing offer. Due to her educated and upper class background in both Hungary and Germany, her grasp of four languages, and the anti-Nazi record of herself and her husband, she was asked to become the hostess of a guest house for witnesses in the Nuremberg war criminal trials. 
  
 This is the story of those guests, centered around the entries in the guest book in that sixteen month period of time. 
It is also the story of the Countess herself, a very human and fragile mother who takes the opportunity offered to her to provide the means of survival for herself and her children.  In a sea of starving and desperate refugees a lifeline has been extended to them. As a woman and a mother I came to like Countess Ingeborg very much. 

  As a reader you see all aspects of human behavior showing themselves in the guests, their hostess, and the victorious Americans as well. There is courage, kindness, that old world code of manners and deportment, selfishness, and conduct that comes forth from a desperate desire to survive. The Third Reich is over; those who supported it that are still alive want to stay that way, and it's amazing how the survival instinct can justify lies and past behaviors not only to others but in their own minds. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Guest-House-Witnesses-Nuremberg/dp/B000J0PJHK 

 Here is another side to the time immediately after the war, and to those famous trials themselves. You are on the sidelines obtaining a unique glimpse into postwar Germany.   

  The memoirs were published in 1974, with the assistance of free-lance writer Ilona Herisko. It is a story worth telling. Amazon has only the hard cover copy from third party sellers, but the price is reasonable. Highly recommended.