Chapter 2, A Small Town in Germany Summary and Analysis

The Blumenthal family lived in Hoya, Germany halfway between Hanover and Bremen. When Marion's mother was twenty she took a long train ride across northern Germany to find her future and ended up there. Marion's mother, Ruth Moses, took a job at a shoe store in Hoya. Two weeks afterwards, working in the Blumenthal family business, the Blumenthal's son Walter proposed marriage. They were married in December 1931 when Ruth was twenty-three and Walter was thirty-five. Albert was born in 1932 and Marion in 1934. Marion remembers her grandparents Lini and Max Blumenthal (Oma and Opa to her) well, as they lived on the floor below Marion's family. When Marion was a baby, her mother remembers, the family would talk about the story, the events of the day and mostly about Hitler.

By the...