The author tells 30 baffling World War II stories in her own words as she witnessed them as a young girl growing up in Berlin, Germany.

Growing up in Berlin, Germany, during World War II, Ingrid Dickson was an open-eyed child with a curious mind and a sensitive nature. She watched and questioned everything around her with child-like transparency. She witnessed first-hand society’s departure from human decency and the force of overwhelming political power.

Ingrid’s unusual upbringing placed her squarely between a mother who was raised in the creative life of a circus family and a father who worked as an engineer who was forced into Hitler’s inner circle. Because of this, Ingrid witnessed the war through both the elite world of German politics and the sheer necessity to be creative during a time when everyone was trying to survive and no one was untouched by life-threatening trauma and the strife of war. Ingrid tells her unusual and sometimes upside-down and backward war memories with the clarity of a master story-teller and the accuracy of a truth-seeking observer.

Ingrid Dickson was born in 1936 to German parents. Ingrid’s mother was raised in a circus family led by Ingrid’s grandfather, who was the trapeze “flier”. When Ingrid’s mother married, she gave up performance. When the war began, due to his technical expertise, Ingrid’s father was forced to work as an engineer for the Nazi Party under the threat of death to him and his entire family. Under the infamous, harrowing circumstances of WWII, despite Ingrid’s father’s high-ranking position, his own family got entangled in life-threatening situations often with no hope to be seen. Ingrid’s stories describe how her mother chose to act with an indomitable spirit of hope, courage, and creativity to find a way through.