Reviews for Against the Stream: Growing up Where Hitler Used to Live

The average rating for Against the Stream: Growing up Where Hitler Used to Live based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-20 00:00:00 Kim Pickrell An astounding account of the moral courage of a contemporary German historian/journalist to come to terms with the fact that her hometown of Pasau, Germany was also central in the boyhood of Hitler and that it also played a key role in the nurturing of SS officers in the Third Reich. Besides this, Passau was also the nearest town to some of the most notorious sub-camps and killings toward the end of WWII. Ms. Rosmus makes many heroic attempts to convince key contemporary Passau politicians and city leaders, many of whom were personally involved in the atrocities of the war, of the need to come to terms with the role their town played during WWII, largely to no avail. Eventually, however, she is able to arrange for a 50th anniversary commemoration in Passau of American and Russian veteran soldier liberators of the death camps along with many of those survivors of the camps who still survived at that time. This book is the story of her journey that finally resulted in this climactic commemoration.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-21 00:00:00 James Dunevent After visiting Passau, I thought it was a very picturesque and interesting town in Germany. We were there at Christmas time, so we visited the Christmas market and the Cathedral for an organ concert. So in hoping to learn more about the town, I learned about Anna Rosmus book from my daughter and put it on my list to read. It is hard to believe that anyone born in 1960 would not have some idea of what went on in Germany during the years of Nazi rule. What an eye opener that was. This is a woman whose perseverance is admirable. She is relenting and that trait can be difficult to appreciate. But the enormity of what went on in Germany during those years is so hard to comprehend and her calls for simple apology and acknowledgment of what happened seem like the right thing to do. How difficult that turned out to be. I am glad that people like Anna Rosmus exist and continue to hold governments and religious communities and towns to a moral standard of decency that we would expect of these institutions.