Memories and Book Excerpts

The authors are blogging about the current corona virus pandemic. Read the  earlier blogs

Rudi was born in Germany eight days after World War II ended in Europe. On this blog, he shares his memories of post-war Germany and excerpts from documents on which Stumbling Stone is based.

Julie’s father was assigned by the American government to help concentration camp survivors in Germany emigrate. Julie shares her recollections of those years and excerpts from letters her parents wrote to relatives in New York.

Please send us comments about the blogs and stories you’d like to share.

It’s Been Amazing: The End

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab. This is our 76th blog since we began to shelter-in-place to do our part in flattening the corona virus curve. It’s been inspiring, stimulating and fun —and a way to connect with many of … Continue reading →

Multitasking During Pandemic

Stumbling Stone

By Rudi Raab and Julie Freestone There’s apparently not much scientific proof that women are better multitaskers than men but in our household, Julie is definitely the one who can do more than one thing at time. In fact if … Continue reading →

Unanticipated Consequences

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Julie has always savored unanticipated consequences, although she freely admits she’s not good at predicting them. We’ve been noticing quite a few since the country began sheltering-in-place. What are they? First a word about … Continue reading →

Kids and Covid: How are they doing?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Because it’s graduation time, a lot of the media are focusing on kids and COVID. They are looking at how weird graduation is for college and high school seniors. How odd it’s going to … Continue reading →

Punditry: Who Knows What?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab This is not a blog about politics specifically, but let’s start with this. Maybe you can call it the Hillary Clinton syndrome. Rudi was in Germany for that infamous election. Julie was in Napa … Continue reading →

Potpourri: A Collection of Thoughts

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone, Rudi Raab and Some of You When Julie worked on tobacco prevention issues for the county health department, one issue they tried to address was the use of cigarettes by teenagers. In those days, most smokers began … Continue reading →

Open: The Economy, Your Mind?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Julie is mostly interested in yoga for the stretching and whatever else physical movement contributes to well being. She has fortunately found a yoga instructor who suits her needs. And every once in a … Continue reading →

It’s Spring: Have We Got Treats

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Nine years ago, when we drove across the country to Nova Scotia, we left on May 3 and returned on June 24. We picked those dates hoping to avoid bad weather and except for … Continue reading →

Are We Toast?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab We were walking around our neighborhood a few days ago, when shelter-in-place restrictions were beginning to be eased and we passed, as we usually do in our local walks, a number of seemingly clueless … Continue reading →

Extra Innings: So Much Nostalgia

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab When we shared the blog about baseball with you a few days ago, we had misgivings. We know a few avid fans are out there (Laurie, we see you) but we thought most of … Continue reading →

When Reality Overtakes Make-Believe

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab In a recent blog, we mentioned that you can sometimes get a sense of society and its concerns by reading advice columns and Next Door— the online community. Today we’re exploring how the comics … Continue reading →

It’s getting a little snarky out there

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Rudi reads to Julie every morning while she’s doing yoga. She’s usually already read the San Francisco Chronicle on her Kindle. He reads her the East County Times: News of the Weird, birthdays, historic … Continue reading →

Holidays We’ve Celebrated: More to Come?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab We both like rituals and we’ve created any number of them in our 30 years together. As the shelter-in-place continues, many of those once taken-for-granted rituals are either falling by the wayside or being … Continue reading →

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie no way

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab When Julie was in high school, she fell in love and over the years, despite three husbands and other long term partners, she’s never forsaken that first romantic target: baseball. Those were the days … Continue reading →

New Skills and Knowledge in Our New World

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab For all that you can say about the negatives of our shelter-in-place experiences, our fear of the future and feelings of loneliness and isolation, there could be some good things coming from the pandemic. … Continue reading →

Election 2020?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Last week, we had some leftover pumpkin lasagna. It’s a dish we serve at least once a year when we have a ballot review gathering. We’ve been doing these sessions just before every election … Continue reading →

Reality from the “floor” of the Senate

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab           Spoiler alert: Today’s blog was supposed to be about new skills we’ve gained during the pandemic, but sometimes events overtake plans. And if you are a Trump supporter, you probably don’t want to … Continue reading →

So Many Numbers: How do they add up?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Weeks and weeks ago, when Julie was walking with her son Michael, she expressed alarm at the number of deaths from COVID-19 reported the day before in New York City. Michael was withholding judgment … Continue reading →

When Are We Opening?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab The media has been full of stories in the last week about opening up the country and the state and individual counties. Businesses that are doing it prematurely, governors who are beginning to ease … Continue reading →

Helping Us Cope: Some Stories

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab Yesterday’s blog described why Julie felt we needed to explore the question of how some of you are using religion, faith or spirituality to cope with the pandemic. Today we’ll introduce you to three … Continue reading →

What Helps During These Times?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab When Julie said we should write a blog about religion, faith and spirituality in these times of COVID-19, we were probably both equally surprised. None of those things, however one defines them, is helping … Continue reading →

Science and Politics: Huh?

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab We don’t spend much time in our house talking about science. Or rather we didn’t. We just took it for granted. What was there to talk about? We know the earth isn’t flat. They’ve … Continue reading →

Searching for Answers: Where is It? Chapter II

Stumbling Stone

Yesterday, blog readers met Wolfgang and Susan, two retirees who had information about secret supplies of medical material. They decided it was their civic duty to find the Strategic National Stockpile, which was needed to fight the pandemic in their … Continue reading →

Searching for Answers: Where is It? Chapter I

Stumbling Stone

By Julie Freestone and Rudi Raab      For the next two days, the blog will make a detour from observations about the reality of shelter-in-place to a little jog into semi-fiction. For years, when we went on vacation, we would sometimes … Continue reading →

Hope is Not a Strategy: What Next?

Stumbling Stone

By Rudi Raab and Julie Freestone A few weeks before the Loma Prieta earthquake (6.9) on the San Andreas Fault in California in 1989, Julie wrote an article for the local newspaper. “Ready or Not” was part of the headline … Continue reading →

Lost and Found: A souvenir from our book tour

Stumbling Stone

Anne Frank’s Great Grandfather’s House This blog was discovered two months after the book tour ended and is published now in July 2018 Book Tour Stop: Landau/Pflaz, Germany May 15, 2018 Our event today was in the Frank-Loeb’sches Haus, once … Continue reading →

“You saved France and Europe”

Stumbling Stone

The French say thank you to four American veterans By Julie Freestone In the last few years since we published our novel Stumbling Stone/Der Stolperstein, we’ve thought a lot about survivors of World War II, victims of the Nazis, those … Continue reading →

Me and my Bouncing Blob

Stumbling Stone

How I learned gratitude and patience. Sort of By Julie Freestone Since many of you have been wonderful about asking how I’m doing, let me start by saying that I am grateful that after I was diagnosed with and treated … Continue reading →

We are going back in time

Stumbling Stone

Is this what democracy looks like? By Julie Freestone Last night I was watching PBS NewsHour’s story about a detention camp in San Diego, California, where the government is sending children crossing the border illegally, some alone, some with parents. … Continue reading →

German Words I’ve Learned

Stumbling Stone

Final Blog from our Book Tour, May 30, 2018 In our novel Der Stolperstein (Stumbling Stone), there is a scene where Karl’s mother recalls her experience during the end of World War II as the Allies were bombing Dresden. She … Continue reading →

Really? Asparagus Again?

Stumbling Stone

  Back in the States May 2018 Since we started our book tour at the end of April 2018 for our novel Der Stolperstein, we’ve been blogging almost every day about our mind-boggling experiences. We’ve gotten enough feedback to keep … Continue reading →

Helping Hands and Italian Food

Stumbling Stone

California, Post book tour, May 26, 2018 You might remember that when we first arrived in Germany for our book tour with our novel Der Stolperstein (Stumbling Stone), people were anxious to treat us to meals. Which was lovely.  Except … Continue reading →

I Meet Little Richard and the NRA

Stumbling Stone

Just After Surgery, May 22, 2018 For those of you who have been following this blog about our German book tour, you know that from April 25 when we left California until we returned on May 21— unexpectedly because I needed … Continue reading →

The Best Laid Plans

Stumbling Stone

The Book Tour Ends: Nowhere in Germany Years ago, our niece Paula gave us a set of Yiddish greeting cards. One said, “Man plans, God laughs.” We spent many many hours planning our German book tour. Friedrich Edelmann and Rebecca … Continue reading →

Do We Need Designated Story Tellers?

Stumbling Stone

Book Tour: Bad Lippspringe, Germany, May 18. 2018 In my group that grapples with issues related to aging, we have at least one theme that recurs often: what to do with old letters and other mementos from lives we led … Continue reading →

The University Receives Us

Stumbling Stone

Dortmund, May 17, 2018 Our event in Dortmund, Germany was at the University of Dortmund International Begegnugszentrum. We’d been referred to Dr. Walter Gruenzweig, Professor of American Literature and Culture, by our friend and American editor Liz Rosner. First Rudi’s … Continue reading →

It’s a Green Vegetable, It’s a God

Stumbling Stone

Somewhere in Germany: Book Tour May 17, 2018 The first time Rudi and I came to Germany in 1990 when I was still looking for Nazis around every corner, we encountered a phenomenon that seems to continue today: Spargel mania. … Continue reading →

A Protestant Minister Leads the Way

Stumbling Stone

Book Tour Stop: Ulm, Germany, May 14, 2018 Some people shape their lives through the influence of their parents. All of Johann Sebastian Bach’s children became major composers. Martin Traenkle, 76, grew up after World War II. His father was … Continue reading →

A Simple Meal, A Simple Story

Stumbling Stone

  An Unscheduled Stop, Munich May 2018 Almost two years ago, Rudi attended the 50th reunion of his high school class from Essen, Germany. He mentioned our novel Stumbling Stone and when he translated it into Der Stolperstein and we … Continue reading →

The Paparazzi Follow Us: Well, Sort of

Stumbling Stone

Somewhere in Germany, May 14, 2018 As a former reporter and public information officer, I’ve created a lot of publicity including press releases and other written material. I’ve trained a range of people on how to work with the media. … Continue reading →

Rudi Confesses: Why He Wanted this Trip

Stumbling Stone

Somewhere in Germany, May 14, 2018 “Gallia omnis divisa est in partes tres.” (Gaul is divided into three parts) Thus begins Julius Caesar’s narrative of the war against the Gauls, the Pikts, the Germanic people and everybody else who stood … Continue reading →

Hope in Spite of Everything

Stumbling Stone

Stop Eight: Gauting, Germany, May 8, 2018 Rudi was pacing around, surveying the relatively small room, set up café style, with a bar, small tables and some chairs. It was 15 minutes before the event was to start and there … Continue reading →

Could Gerhard Have Been Saved?

Stumbling Stone

Book Tour Stop Seven:  Munich, Germany When we did our book events for Stumbling Stone, the American version of Der Stolperstein, we decided to talk very little about Part III of the book—Gerhard’s story. Instead we focused on the unlikely … Continue reading →

Snippets of a Surreal Experience

Stumbling Stone

Stop Five: Esslingen, Germany May 5, 2018 If we were writing a book about a book tour, we wouldn’t dare invent some of the amazing experiences we are having on our real Der Stolperstein tour. Here are a series of … Continue reading →

Gerhard Comes Alive

Stumbling Stone

Stop Four: Freiburg, Germany May 3, 2018 For a little while, we almost felt like tourists as we drove from Esslingen to Freiburg in Southern Germany through the Black Forest, an area of the country Rudi had never been through. … Continue reading →

A Catholic School Leads the Way

Stumbling Stone

Stop Three: Speyer, Germany They were lined up on the stairs and along the windows in the auditorium, more than a dozen teenage girls, whispering to each other and looking at us — leaning over a table and signing and … Continue reading →

A Fork in the Road: We Find History

Stumbling Stone

When we left Leipzig to drive south, I told Rudi we were headed for Würzburg. Arranging the details of a six-week, fifteen-stop book tour is even more daunting than it sounds and some of the results are somewhat random. Having … Continue reading →

We Go Back in Time

Stumbling Stone

A  Community Rises from the Ashes It almost seemed eerie that we found parking in front of a sign that said “Gerhard”, advertising a labor lawyer’s office and right near Ariowitsch-Haus in Leipzig, where our second book event was. Was … Continue reading →

A German Village Grieves and Atones

Stumbling Stone

First Book Tour Stop: Steinbach, Germany They filed into the Jewish Museum in Steinbach quietly, respectfully and looking, some of them at least, curious. Although it wasn’t a synagogue, I noticed the men donning kippot -Jewish skullcaps – supplied by … Continue reading →

Governing by Fiat

Stumbling Stone

History Repeats? By Rudi Raab When you have a book in print and friends and strangers read it, they usually recommend another book with a similar topic to you. For a year and a half we have made appearances in … Continue reading →

The Right Wing is Rising

Stumbling Stone

Young People Must Get Information We have a German editor who is working with Rudi to bring Stumbling Stone to Germany.  Expressing concern about the right wing rising across Europe, Isolde Haug-Schoenhaar says: “The translation of Stumbling Stone is very important … Continue reading →

A New Challenge

Stumbling Stone

Creating a German Version of Stumbling Stone Right after we published Stumbling Stone, Rudi said several times that he thought we should translate the novel into German, since it is essentially a story about a German family and their history … Continue reading →

Do Germans Want to Read about the Nazis?

Stumbling Stone

Should Stumbling Stone Be Translated into German? New friends of ours- German musicians Friedrich Edelmann (he was born in Germany and, like Rudi, his father was a member of the Nazi Party) and Rebecca Rust (she was born in the … Continue reading →