Family Histories of World War II

The stories in this anthology are gripping This book will make an excellent text for courses on World War II, especially ones focusing on the social history of the conflict Historians and social scientists seeking to document the current war in Ukraine should definitely add this work to their bookshelf. * Journal of Family History * An interesting, unusual and often moving book. This draws on family memories of the Second World War mainly from amongst people, with many national origins, who now work at the tranquil campus of the National University of Ireland at Galway. Edited by experienced historians but written by a wide range of people (mainly but not exclusively academics),and recounting the experiences of an even wider group of people from an earlier generation, it combines the immediacy of personal experience with scholarly rigour. It will be a stimulating book for any undergraduate class as well as being a compelling work for many general readers. * Richard Vinen, Professor of History, King's College London, UK * Historians have spent far too little time studying the impact of war on families through the generations. This wonderful volume fills that gap with dignity, intelligence, and compassion. * Michael S. Neiberg, Inaugural Chair of War Studies, United States Army War College, USA * The power of Healy and Barrys book lies in the way the stories are told. ... the essays are moving and fascinating in equal measure, and can help the reader understand how the war impacted on individual lives in a way that traditional narrative histories often fail to achieve. * Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine *

Risn Healy is Senior Lecturer in European History at NUI Galway, Ireland. She is the author of Poland in the Irish Nationalist Imagination, 17721922 (2017) and The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany (2003). She has also edited or co-edited four books, including Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I (2016; as co-editor) and 1916 in Global Context: An anti-Imperial moment (2017; as co-editor). Gearid Barry is Lecturer in European History at NUI Galway, Ireland. He is the author of The Disarmament of Hatred: Marc Sangnier, French Catholicism and the Legacy of the First World War, 1914-45 (2012). He is also the co-editor, along with Enrico Dal Lago and Risn Healy, of Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I (2016) and 1916 in Global Context: An anti-Imperial moment (2017).

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors 1. From Generation to Generation: World War II Narratives in Transition, Risn Healy (NUI Galway, Ireland) and Gearid Barry (NUI Galway, Ireland) Part I. Lives in Uniform: Enduring Combat and Captivity 2. Nothing Spectacular to Remember? Dealing with Wartime Memories in a German Family, Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa (NUI Galway, Ireland) 3. The Returning POW and a Wartime Volunteer: A Love Story, Sheena Fennell (NUI Galway, Ireland) and Gill Fennell (Independent Scholar, Ireland) 4. Educating Friends and Enemies: An Irishmans Experiences in Wartime Britain, Patricia Scully (NUI Galway, Ireland) 5. The Diary of an Italian Officer in Nazi Concentration Camps, 1943-1945: The Forgotten History of Italian Military Internees, Marina Ansaldo (NUI Galway, Ireland) 6. Behind Enemy Lines: The Story of an American Soldier and the Italian Family who Saved Him, Colleen Maloney Williamson (Independent Scholar, USA) and Maureen Maloney (NUI Galway, Ireland) 7. From El Alamein to Bergen-Belsen: An Irish Dental Officer's War, Ciara Boylan (NUI Galway, Ireland) 8. Recording the War in Connemara: A Guianese Sailor in the Eastern Mediterranean, Cormac Loidein (NUI Galway, Ireland) Part II. Lives under Seige: Coping with Occupation 9. A Spanish Communist in the French Resistance: Uncle Lus and a German Map, Sara Farrona (NUI Galway, Ireland) 10. A Boy in Small-Town Germany from Home Front to Allied Occupation, Hermann Rasche (NUI Galway, Ireland) 11. A Childs View of War: Nazi Occupation, Resistance, and Civil War in Northeastern Italy, 1943-1945, Enrico Dal Lago (NUI Galway, Ireland) 12. A Greek Tragedy: A Small Village at War, Constantinos G. Efthymiou (NUI Galway, Ireland) 13. A Russian Jewish Family Remembers the Siege of Leningrad, Irina Ruppo (NUI Galway, Ireland) 14. Slave Labour and its Legacies: My Maternal Grandparents' Journey from Ukraine to Germany to Belgium, Sylvie Mossay (NUI Galway, Ireland) Select Further Reading Notes Index