My essay, "Schwanenwerder, a Hidden Gem of Berlin: Tracing a Nazi Past," has appeared in The Berlin Review. Awarded a writer's residency by a foundation for women artists, the Cordts Art Foundation, my goal was to work on a book about my experiences teaching in East Germany in the 1980s and about my Stasi (secret police) file. My experiences on the island of Schwanenwerder on the Wannsee in Berlin was marvelous--but I also encountered Nazi history. The island taught me that to understand my experiences in East Germany in the 1980s, I had to return to Germany's fascist past.
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