Enemy on the Way to School: Poems of A German Jewish Childhood

Annette Hayn assembled this cycle of poems around her childhood memories of Nazi Germany, followed by her escape to Britain, and, later, to America. Constructed of hauntingly understated poems, tinged with surrealism, this memorable book is a personal and artistic testimony. Hayn recounts her childhood fascination with Schiller’s plays, opera, and other aspects of high German culture and describes how, in the brief interlude of the Kulturbund, German Jews were permitted artistic expression, only to be prohibited from presenting anything by real Germans. Other poems center on her schooldays, parents and family, with premonitions about the oncoming troubles. We are proud to bring these finely-wrought poems into a second edition for new readers.