Years of Estrangement

This work contains two narratives which together offer a portrait of how two German Jews came to terms with the changes in their lives brought on by the Nazis. A study of the destruction of culture and humanity, morality and justice, and the morale of every population in Hitler’s Germany. Erich Leyens, a decorated World War I hero who openly protested against the arrival of the Nazis in his hometown, reflects here on his five years of direct experience with the Nazis, exploring how the pressures of an authoritarian system destroy human relationships and compromise values, and how the masses of Germans became disposed to submit unconditionally to the Hitler cult. In contrast, Lotte Andor’s memoirs focuses on the comical, even absurd side of her experience as an exile. For Andor, whose promising career as a stage actress was abrubtly ended by the Nazis, her emigration from Germany in 1934 brought not only apprehension, pain and uncertainty, but also sometimees unusual joy.