to learn more about Lew Weinstein and his novels,
go to … http://lewweinsteinauthorblog.com/
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The primary purpose of our trip to Munich was to see the places that will be part of my novel-in-progress. Our excellent guide Chaim Frank took us to Friday night services at the new (orthodox) synagogue, and then took me on a walk to Munich’s Jewish and nazi landmarks. Chaim proved to be both knowledgeable and a pleasure to be with.
Chaim Frank with one of several monuments to Munich’s Jews
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On our own, we found the Frauenkirche Cathedral, shown here as it was after WWII, the Wilhemsgymnasium library, pre-war apartment flats, and the Bayerischer Hof hotel. I have written drafts of scenes where Cardinal Faulhaber gives an Easter sermon in the cathedral, my main character Berthold Becker spends an eventful day in a rather biased history class, and a New Years Eve party rings out the year 1923 at Munich’s finest hotel.
4 locations that will appear in my novel-in-progress
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Oskar Holl is a friend of my Princeton classmate Charles McClelland, and now a friend of ours. Oskar knows Munich, he is the mayor of a section of the city with a population of 50,000, and he provided a wealth of background material that I am still absorbing. When I asked him if he knew a “liberal” Jew in Munich, he called Terry Swartzberg and we all got together for a delightful Bavarian dinner. Terry, born in Connecticut, a long-time business reporter for the International Herald Tribune, explained what it meant to him to be a Jew in Munich. He is active in a program to place small memorials (called stolpersteins) in the pavement in front of every home in Germany from which a Jew was taken to the ovens. He is also about to be Bar Mitzvah.
Terry, me, Oskar and a stolperstein
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We were warned by our friends Simone and Viviane that “there are naked people in the English Garden.” They didn’t lie.
in Munich’s English Garden
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TRAVEL with pat and lew 