In the winter of 2014/15, I started working on a project I’d been thinking about for some time; a process that culminated some four years later with the publication of my book Through the Whirlpool, a biographical account of my parents’ journey through the Nazi years, the Second World War and, finally, their migration to Canada.

     It’s a story that encapsulates the experiences of many ordinary Germans whose lives, like my parents', were thrown into turmoil as they watched Hitler's promise of prosperity and glory disintegrate into a nightmare of war, murder and destruction.

     For me, writing this book also opened an opportunity to reflect on the social and political dynamics that were at play during the rise of the Nazis and to try to understand why millions of Germans, including some of my family members,  were sympathetic to the Nazi cause.