Lotte Paepcke

Under a Foreign Star Lotte Paepcke

Lotte Paepcke survived as a Jew in Germany throughout the Nazi reign. She describes in lyrical and reflective language the circumstances that enabled this rare preservation of a Jewish life. For a time Mrs. Paepcke's non-Jewish husband, and her small child protected her from deportation to the camps. When the special laws providing this protection crumbled during World War II, a Catholic monastery in Southern Germany hid her within its walls until the French army liberated the area. Mrs. Paepcke's life during the time was a rare occurrence, where the obscene web of German racial laws for a time left a gray zone in which she survived as an almost transparent persona. Her 1952 book is now available in English for the first time. The original 1952 German edition was published by the Frankfurter Hefte under the title "Unter einem fremden Stern." A second edition was released in 1979 by the Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau.