My Crossings

The author, Rudi Lea, tells how he crossed the Atlantic Ocean six times on ocean liners before planes took over. He was a member of the first group of German Jewish children to leave Berlin, because of the Nazi take-over of Germany, to be raised by a foster family in the United States. His real parents were prominent musicians in Germany, largely before he was born. He returned to the country of his birth as an American GI during World War II, taking part in the final defeat of Nazi Germany, and then again, later, as the first American principal of Berlin's famous bi-national and bilingual John F. Kennedy School. Lea had a notable career in public education both in the United States and in Germany, and now lives in semi-retirement in the Philadelphia suburbs.