An Interview with
GABRIELLE ROBINSON
1. Was there a specific moment where you thought “I need to turn this experience into a book?”
There were two such moments. The first when I discovered the diaries with their day by day account of life in Berlin 1945. The second when the diaries revealed that my beloved grandfather had been a member of the Nazi party.
2. What lessons did you take away from writing this memoir?
So many, although they come more as questions than definitive answers. What it is like living in a totalitarian regime. How people cope in desperate and violent circumstances. How love, faith, and writing helped my grandfather survive. The importance of our early experiences in shaping our outlook and attitudes.
3. How did your previous historically focused titles and your professorial experience influence writing this memoir?
Already as a student I found the excitement of research when I discovered an unpublished play. Since then, by luck and hard work, I have gained a better understanding of history, and, yes, made more discoveries by reading, talking to people, and more reading. Just recently as I was writing about Studebaker workers from the South who met Jim Crow in the north, I was given the minutes of the first African American housing project in Indiana. And now my grandfather’s diaries literally fell into my hands and led to the current book.
4. In this memoir, you balance history and personal legacy beautifully. Why is this story important to you? What do you hope readers will take away from it?
June 10, 2023
An Interview with Gabrielle Robinson, author of Api’s Berlin Diaries | Impressions In Ink
maximios Review
An Interview with
GABRIELLE ROBINSON
1. Was there a specific moment where you thought “I need to turn this experience into a book?”
There were two such moments. The first when I discovered the diaries with their day by day account of life in Berlin 1945. The second when the diaries revealed that my beloved grandfather had been a member of the Nazi party.
2. What lessons did you take away from writing this memoir?
So many, although they come more as questions than definitive answers. What it is like living in a totalitarian regime. How people cope in desperate and violent circumstances. How love, faith, and writing helped my grandfather survive. The importance of our early experiences in shaping our outlook and attitudes.
3. How did your previous historically focused titles and your professorial experience influence writing this memoir?
Already as a student I found the excitement of research when I discovered an unpublished play. Since then, by luck and hard work, I have gained a better understanding of history, and, yes, made more discoveries by reading, talking to people, and more reading. Just recently as I was writing about Studebaker workers from the South who met Jim Crow in the north, I was given the minutes of the first African American housing project in Indiana. And now my grandfather’s diaries literally fell into my hands and led to the current book.
4. In this memoir, you balance history and personal legacy beautifully. Why is this story important to you? What do you hope readers will take away from it?