Lily, Oh Lily Searching for a Nazi ghost

by Holman, Jeffrey Paparoa

• ISBN13: 9781988503479
• ISBN10: 1988503477
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-01-01
• Publisher: Canterbury University Press

Summary

What if the dead – our dead – never feel to us that they have gone? If family stories, fragments of their lives, continue to nag and haunt us? Lily Hasenburg was just such a figure in Holman’ s growing years. She was whispered into his ear by grandmother Eunice – in memorable stories of her older sister, who married and moved to Germany at the turn of the 20th century, and was later caught up in the Nazi web spun by Adolf Hitler. Unable to shake loose this story, Holman pursued her to Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden. Here, we have an account of his pilgrimage; the kind of family history we might bury, and forget – to our loss.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman is an acclaimed poet, historian and memoirist. His poetry has been shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards; his family memoir 'The Lost Pilot' (Penguin, 2013) was warmly received in Aotearoa and overseas. 'Best of Both Worlds: The story of Elsdon Best and Tutakangahau' (Penguin, 2010) was short-listed for the Ernest Scott Prize (History) in Australia. Since retirement from his role as senior adjunct fellow at the University of Canterbury, he has taught creative writing in both primary and high school programmes.

Table of Contents

Foreword Family Tree In the Beginning, the Dead HOME One Listening to Nanny Eunice Two Meeting the Remarkable Bywaters Three Cousin Robin and the Jewish Husband Four Nanny’ s Address Book and Mormon Helpers AWAY Five I Land in Berlin Six Germany is My Teacher Seven Passing German at the Goethe-Institut Eight Encounters in London Fields Nine Manuel is My Hamburg Genealogist Ten Grunewald and the Leaping Hare Eleven Taking Old Glory Back to Dresden Twelve Certificates of Birth and Death Thirteen Victor Culture and Colonial Amnesia Fourteen English Lily in a German War Fifteen Great- uncle Uly and the Gestapo Sixteen Lily is Interned on the Isle of Man Seventeen Looking into the Graves Eighteen From the Hotel Adlon to Kensal Green HOME Coda The Real Story of the Book Postscript Germany After 1945 Notes Bibliography Mihimihi/Acknowledgements