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A World Gone Mad: The True Story of Surviving a Dictatorship (New Edition)

by Gretel Timan

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Growing up under East German rule

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Growing up under East German rule

Gretel Timan’s autobiography traces her childhood and adolescence in East Germany, where her family background and refusal to join the Soviet-German friendship brought discrimination and restrictions. The account also looks back to the end of Hitler’s regime and the political transition that shaped her early life. Its central turning point is Timan’s emigration to the United States in 1957, at age twenty-one, and the change she describes in her circumstances afterward. The book frames personal memory around childhood under dictatorship, constrained choices, migration, and the contrast Timan draws between life in East Germany and the freedom she later found in the United States.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in autobiographies about growing up under authoritarian governments.
  • Readers exploring East German history through personal experience.
  • Readers interested in migration narratives and family background.

Themes

Childhood under dictatorshipDiscrimination and restrictionMigrationFreedom and democracy

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

This autobiography is told through the eyes of a child growing into a teen from the last gasping thousand-year empire of Hitler into the equally evil government of East Germany, a life that had no normal childhood and a life of tears and fear and no future. Only being allowed to migrate to the US at age twenty-one changed the author's life.

 

Gretel Timan grew up in East Germany and struggled with discrimination and restriction because her father was a "capitalist." She had contact with her American aunt, and worst, she refused to join the Soviet-German friendship. In 1957, she emigrated to the US, and her life changed dramatically. In her words, she became a "butterfly." She now lives in North Carolina and is forever grateful to be allowed to live in freedom and democracy.

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