The memoir of a half-Jew (or mischling as the Nazis called them) who, born in 1919, was a teenager in Germany during the early Nazi years and a young adult during the war. Heinz's life was indeed "almost ordinary." His parents divorced when he was a young child. His thrice-married father was a deeply religious Catholic who eventually went to live a simple life in a priory (though without taking vows). Most of his Jewish relatives, including his mother, left the country before deportations began. Heinz had to be quite circumspect about who he talked to and who his friends were (and indeed, most people didn't want to associate with him anyway, either from anti-Semitism or just fear). His sister Annemarie fell in love with and married an Aryan man, but the marriage had to be secret, because it was against the law for Aryans to marry mischling. But Heinz and Annemarie were spared the kind of harassment, arbitrary arrests, and later deportations and murder that regular Jews got, and their peculiar status was a blessing in some other ways. Mischling could not serve in the military, for example. Two anecdotes from the book to show just how wonderful that particular restriction was for Heinz:

Anecdote #1: One brief job Heinz had during the war was sorting through used German military uniforms to see which ones were completely ruined and which ones might be salvageable. Those that might be still good, he put aside to be repaired and presumably sent back to the front. Those were very few. The vast majority of the uniforms were shredded or worn beyond use for anything, some of them freckled with bullet holes, some of them so soaked in blood that the cloth was stiff as a board. (Aside: Sometimes Heinz found medals, even very prestigious ones, attached to the uniforms. Those, he stole and sold on the black market later. He was paid very poorly, and a man has to eat. But what would the Nazis do to you if they caught you wearing an Iron Cross that wasn't yours?) Anecdote #2: Shortly after the war was over, Heinz visited a school he'd attended when he was about fourteen but had had to withdraw from when it was turned into an elite Nazi military academy. He learned that of the approximately 40 boys in what would have been his graduating class in 1938, no more than 5, and maybe as few as 3, were still alive. No prizes for guessing what happened to the others.

I think Heinz talked waaaaaaay too much about his Catholic faith and all the religious and philosophical books he read. Like most people who are intensely interested in a certain topic, he tended to forget that the rest of the world was not so fascinated by it as he was. A lot of that stuff should have been cut out. But to those who want to learn about the lives of mischling in Nazi Germany, this book provides a wealth of details. ( )

2212 Mixed Blessings: An Almost Ordinary Life in Hitler's Germany, by Heinz R. Kuehn (read 28 May 1989) I found this to be an extraordinarily enthralling book. The author came to adulthood in Germany in the late 1930's, but because his mother was Jewish he was not allowed in the German Army. So he was a civilian during most of the war. His Jewish mother got out of Germany. He is or was a Catholic and his account is really interesting. In 1951 he came to the U.S., and he writes excellent English. I found this book utterly absorbing, and one of the very best books I've read in a long time. ( )