In Adolf Hitler’s Ghost, Elizabeth Maria Schmid offers a powerful and personal memoir of growing up in Austria during the Second World War, witnessing the rise and fall of Nazism, and enduring its legacy across generations. Drawing from her experiences as a child under aerial bombardment and dictatorship, a later medical professional, and now an artist, Schmid reveals how the ghost of Adolf Hitler’s reign continues to influence lives long after the guns have fallen silent.
Born in 1936 in Vienna, just before Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Schmid's early life was marked by her father’s outspoken opposition to Hitler. He lost his academic position and was drafted into the German army to fight in Russia. Remarkably, he survived the Battle of Stalingrad and five years in Russian prison camps. Meanwhile, Elizabeth, her mother, and sister spent much of the war in small villages seeking safety from the relentless bombing of the cities.
The author later earned a medical degree, completed residency in pathology, and worked at prestigious institutions including Stanford and Cedars-Sinai. As she built a life in the United States, she raised three children, earned respect in her career, and eventually embraced painting in retirement—another outlet through which the past’s reverberations found expression.
Adolf Hitler’s Ghost explores more than just historical events; it examines how societies, families, and individuals carry forward trauma—both seen and invisible. Through vivid storytelling, Schmid delves into postwar life in Austria, her year as an exchange student in the U.S., her professional path in medicine, and how the residual fear, xenophobia, and moral dilemmas of war shaped—and sometimes continue to shape—daily life. The book also argues that dictatorships leave deep, generational scars: psychological, societal, and cultural.
This 100-page memoir is available in both paperback and digital formats in Amazon and Barnes&Noble.
Media Contact
Company Name: Page and Pixel
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: https://page-and-pixel.com/
