Lesser child

by Karen Gershon

A Lesser Child recounts the childhood of distinguished poet Karen Gershon, who grew up in Germany under Hitler's regime. Karen was the granddaughter of a wealthy member of the local Jewish community, and her family was close-knit. She was academically gifted and a natural poet, with striking good looks. Yet none of her good fortune could dispel her sense of inferiority. In Hitler's Germany, a conventional adolescence was impossible, and Karen cowered behind an unrelieved bewilderment. Karen's story, however, is more than an account of her childhood. It is a vivid and moving re-creation of the period leading up to the Holocaust, with all its tension and uncertainty.