On Austrian Soil: Teaching Those I Was Taught to Hate

by Sondra Perl

Finalist for the 2006 Independent Publishers Book Award in the Autobiography/Memoir category

Most educators keep their teaching secret. In On Austrian Soil, an award-winning teacher, Sondra Perl, opens her classroom to reveal the struggles and successes she encounters when she, not without trepidation, raises the questions of history with her adult Austrian students, descendants of Nazis. Her students, teachers themselves, come face-to-face with the question of their responsibility not only to the past but also to the future. Perl's careful descriptions are an invitation to scrutinize her teaching and thinking as well as her students' own histories and hatreds. Writing together, she and her students break lifelong silences—discovering along the way the power of dialogue to transform deeply held prejudices.

Genres: Holocaust

258 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2005

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Jewish author finds herself in Germany teaching the children of Nazis in a graduate seminar. She details the clashes and coming together and her friendship that develops with one of the students.

I bought this book after hearing her speak at a conference and it read almost like a novel.

[Jan]

This was such a valuable book for me to read. Resolving the shared history between the descendants of Jews and Nazis will never be finished, but walking alongside the author as she struggles and grows through conversations and experiences helps us all learn to be better humans and apply this knowledge to “how we stand in the world”.

[Karin Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read it as part of a seminar I will be taking about the Holocaust and the sense of place (relating to the Dakota Indians). I am wide awake at 3 a.m. wondering about my sense of place. Sondra Perl does a good job of asking simple questions that command complex answers.

[Angie Gascho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very compelling look at the impact of the Holocaust on future generations and how to open a dialogue addressing our own prejudices and move forward. It is told from the perspective of a teacher and her personal experiences, which is something I relate to well, but it raises a number of interesting questions and ideas to contemplate. I very much enjoyed reading this book.

[Michelle Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a teaching manual. It is a deep and very honest reflection of a journey both physically and spiritually. To see the change that happened in the lives of people who were not afraid to dig deeper through their writing is truly inspiring.