156 pages. OVER TWO DOZEN PHOTOS from Helen's scrapbook! The narrative is taken from her two trip diaries. Readers tell me that they felt like they were right there with her!
This wonderful story/memoir READS like a NOVEL, with the romance, and the challenges, and the fun, but it all really happened and this is what makes it so fascinating and historical!
The book is written in diary format. The entries for September include a historical timeline to help the reader understand what was going on in Europe, leading up to the Munich Conference which took place the day she was to leave. Helen's two month dream vacation (by rail through nine countries) is peppered with many unexpected events. Attending a Hitler Rally is NOT on her itinerary, but when a handsome Austrian soldier presents her with a ticket and he guides her to a waiting taxi ...... what's a girl to do
This is a true story captured from the pages of Helen's two trip diaries! The setting is 1938 Europe during the unstable prelude to WWII. Adolph Hitler has annexed Austria and is demanding a portion of Czechoslovakia or he will start a war. She experiences a blackout night in Austria and finds herself in the midst of absolute chaos in Paris because the Munich Conference is in progress. She is by far not the only one who is crowded on a tender, trying to get to the RMS Queen Mary that is sailing to New York, but the ocean liner is standing off shore, far from the dock!! I have not found an eye-witness account of this day in Paris, anywhere else!
Readers of this book say that they felt like they were right there with Helen, during the fun, AND the challenges!On 8/3/38, Helen embarks on her eight week trip, which includes England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, and Switzerland. She sails over on the SS Normandie.
When she arrives alone at the train station in Nuremberg, on the eve of the annual Nazi Party Rally, the surprises begin. Tales of blackout nights, cancelled hotel reservations, Parisian taxis commandeered for war, the drivers called suddenly for military service
You will appreciate her sense of humor, outgoing personality, and ability to see the good aspects in each challenge. She found that the men were handsome and that language barriers were meant to be broken.
The Epilogue contains letters from two soldiers that she met. One soldier was in the first groups to march into Czechoslovakia, and described the reception! The other, an Austrian, wrote after the war ended and described the sad conditions there. Board the SS Normandie with Helen and experience this moment in time. BON VOYAGE! EXCERPT from the book: CHAPTER EIGHT - AUSTRIA: As we approached Salzburg, the countryside was studded with sparkling blue lakes against a background of heavenly snow-capped mountains. I was still entranced upon my arrival at Salzburg, and thus unprepared for the shock that lay ahead. After departing the train, I looked for my baggage, but it was nowhere in sight! I tried desperately to find my way to the street. Usually when I got off a train, I just followed the crowd. This time there were very few people, and they had scattered in all directions. After many false turns, I emerged at the street, and found my baggage sitting there, with no one around. When I asked a taxi driver to go to the Salzberger Hof Hotel, he said that it had not been a hotel since the German occupation of Austria, the preceding March. It was now a German military headquarters............when I sought help for my dilemma, a woman took me to Nazi headquarters!
About the Author: Kathleen Reed is a web site designer who lives in Wisconsin with her husband and four cats. She is thrilled to be fulfilling her Aunt Helen's lifelong wish to transform the details of this unique journey into book form so it can be shared with all. This book contains 156 pages. Helen worked for the US Government, in the Department of Agriculture. She was an intelligent lady, who, (just like world leaders, ) was "unaware" of Hitler's plans, and what inhumanities had already taken place in Austria, since Hitler's annexation in the previous March. After she returned, she wrote a long travelogue type letter to a friend, and saved a copy. This letter was so rich with extra details, that I carefully merged it with the text in the diaries.