My Tainted Blood | Hubert Kueter | A compelling autobiography of survival in wartime Germany

My Tainted Blood | Hubert Kueter | "I like that it's kind of a cookbook too!"

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My Tainted Blood

	My Tainted Blood Hubert Kueter Polar Bear & Company, 2008 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Colby professor emeritus of German literature recounts surviving the Nazis and postwar racism. The half-Jewish teenager forages to feed family and friends. With humorous and picaresque adventures in school, sports, music, cooking, romance, and intrigue, involving German, Russian, and African American soldiers, Kueter tells the multifaceted story of the German Jews and their unrequited love of Germany.

A compelling autobiography of survival in wartime Germany

"My Tainted Blood" is the compelling, semi-fictionalized autobiography of survival in war time and post-war Germany as a half-Jewish teenager, as he negotiated his way amidst the uncertainties that lurked with every new social encounter. Finding enough to eat was commonly a priority, a problem often solved creatively by the wiles of the writer. Hubert Kueter's story is captivating and even humerous as it moves the reader from one crisis to another in a dangerous world. Vividly presented, this story is a must for the American reader far removed from the personal everyday experiences of life in Germany during those years. Superbly told, it is a window into an extraordinary time in our recent history from the perspective of one who lived it. This is truly an important work!

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"I like that it's kind of a cookbook too!"

My ten year old daughter loves this book. Its "conversational" style makes it one of our favorite books to read aloud. (Okay, I've censored a couple of phrases, but it's very kid friendly.) She identifies with the spunky and complex protagonist, and because she knows it's a fictionalized autobiography, she delights in trying to tease the strands of fiction out of the fabric of Truth, an exercise which will appeal to many adult readers as well.

A Savory Tale Even Adolescent Boys Will Like

I had a hard time imagining how the food motif could possibly be credibly combined with a story of survival in Nazi Germany, but it works! The overall deprivation and bleakness of this historical period fade into the background as young Horst, time and time again, manages to come home with the raw material not just for survival but for a feast. The combination of his lyrically described meals, his poignant romance with the talented Brigitte and the tales of masculine courage and daring are an unbeatable recipe.

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A Coming of Age Story in Reverse : Order then chaos

Hubert Keuter's memoir covers a brief eighteen-month period, beginning in his l5th and and ending during his 16th year. It also coincides with the coming apart of Hitler's mad dream, so it is really two stories woven seamlessly together as Keuter, part Candide, part Reynard the Fox, dances with fearless ingenuity through the cultural minefields of a collapsing Third Reich, in which food - and the obtaining of it - become not only a driving force for survival, but also a metaphor for his skills at triumphantly outsmarting his family's adversaries.

It is told against the backdrop of his mother's succinct but startlingly lucid dairy entries, which for me served as a sort of narrative base continuo for his remarkable, improvisational adventures.

One of the first things one realizes is that there were lots of bizarre loopholes in the vaunted efficiency of the Nazi killing machine, and Keuter's survival as a part-Jewish child (the 'Tainted Blood' of the title) had a lot to do with being able to recognize and utilize those inconsistencies in the enforcement of the Nazi Aryan codes.

But some of his toughest challenges come when Germany has surrendered and, one would suppose, things would get easier. In fact the opposite happens, as the country slips into the virtual anarchy of a black market economy, where Jews, ex-Nazi's, Poles, Russians, and Americans all mingle in a soupy mix of Chaplinesque comedy and intrigue, complete with a stolen Picasso, defecting Russian officers, black American soldiers....and some great recipes thrown in as well!

Keuter has revisited just a tiny portion of his 78 years in this book. I certainly hope he decides to give us a few more chapters sometime soon.

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A revealing and fascinating story

The author grew up secretly Jewish in a Europe controlled by the Nazis. Only now, decades later, he writes about how it was for his alter ego (Horst)in this partly autobiographical story. He and his mother did finally make it to the USA after the war but by then he had grown almost to manhood. The story is a partly fictionalized window into his personality and the weird conditions of life during that time of turmoil and great personal danger. In real life, Mr. Kueter became a gourmet chef and for almost 30 years ran a restaurant in Maine specializing in continental cuisine - - an outcome foreshadowed in this tasty novel.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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