THE HIDDEN GERMAN

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What was it like growing up in America with parents who came from Germany? After WWI and WWII, the emotional debris of guilt and shame stuck to the faultless children of German emigrants in the United States. Those invisible casualties of war, silent and surreptitious, left indelible marks. Here are stories about a few of these first-generation Americans, their legacies, and the lives they led in the last part of the twentieth century with its never-ending wars and, paradoxically, its medical advances to preserve life. Their professional pursuits unfold along with their intimate personal frustrations and hopes. They are physicians in research, psychiatry, and oncology attending the university hospitals, mindful of patients' histories and trying to contribute to the general good. The testimonials are portraits of a woman and the two men she interacts with while she tries to resolve life's conflicts.