A member of the first generation growing up after World War II when Nazi Germany killed more than six million Jews in horrific acts of genocide, Shirlee Sky Hoffman became aware of the Holocaust at an early age. In her hauntingly intimate poetry and prose, she probes the reverberations of living, at first reluctantly, for two years in the 1970s, in a country where a few decades before she would have been exterminated.
Hoffman's writing includes descriptions of her positive experiences in West Germany, largely shaped by a close group of German friends. She intersperses explorations of how remembering the destruction wrought by the Holocaust has permeated her life and that of the broader Jewish community with reflections on the ironies of her family's history and on the persistence of evil.
By publishing First Generation Singular: Reactions to Living in Post-Holocaust Germany, a stunning tribute to her Jewish heritage and legacy, Hoffman participates in memorializing the Holocaust and its clear lessons for humanity.
Comments from pre-publication readers:
"You write poetry I can understand....beautiful, powerful, sometimes raw."
"...intense, searching; awakened deep emotions and questions."
"The prose and poems in this book confront some of the most difficult topics ever...the impossibilities of comprehending the Holocaust's destruction."
About the Author: Shirlee Sky Hoffman is a retired marketing consultant and group facilitator. Born in Canada, she received her bachelor's degree in history from York University in Toronto and her master's degrees in history and in education from Harvard University. She and her family lived twice in West Germany in the 1970s.
Hoffman has written all her life. Her poems and short stories have been published in numerous books and periodicals and, more recently, on her website at www.skyscribed.com.
Hoffman lives with her husband in Chicago. When she isn't writing, she volunteers at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute where she learns about the ancient Near East and delights in sharing her ever-growing knowledge with visitors of all ages.
