Refugee Girl: A Memoir, Book Talk

Meet the author, Maruta Lietiņš Ray, and share an afternoon listening to a few excerpts from Refugee Girl, to be followed by discussions of her memoir with audience members. Dr. Lietiņš Ray’s topic of war and the impact of displacement is a current one for everyone living in our times. The book can be purchased in advance from Amazon.

Proof of vaccination is required to keep everyone as safe as possible.

ABOUT THE EVENT – The Latvian Society with our co-host The German Society welcomes author Dr. Maruta Lietiņš-Ray to share her childhood memories of the world in and around the time of World War II, life in the post-war Displaced Persons camps of Germany, and a new beginning in the United States. Dr. Lietiņš-Ray will discuss how even through challenging times, with circumstances often dark and foreboding, people displayed a miraculous resiliency and the will to alter their life’s path.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – Dr. Maruta Lietiņš Ray was born during World War II in Latvia, where her mother was a star of stage and film, and her father the director of music of the National Theater. Her family was evacuated to Germany in 1944 as the Soviet front was advancing, and spent the last 8 months of the war, as Germany was bombarded and strafed by the Allies, in various locations in Germany where her parents were employed as farm laborers. At the end of the war, in the summer of 1945, the family was granted “Displaced Persons” status and was quartered in a refugee camp, administered by UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) in the then British zone of the occupied and divided Germany. In 1950, with the aid of a sponsor and having passed medical, political, and psychological tests, her family was cleared to emigrate to the U.S. She experienced the life of a new immigrant in New York City, and slowly found her place in the fabric of America. It is the memories and the experiences from those years and the details of refugee and immigrant everyday life that she has collected in her childhood memoir Refugee Girl.

Education:

1962 BA: Barnard College, Columbia University

1963 MA: Germanic Languages and Literatures, Middlebury College (and one year on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany)

1973 Ph.D.: Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago

Work Experience:

1963-1969: Instructor, College, Division of Humanities, University of Chicago

1972- 1984: Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor, Rider University, NJ

1983: Visiting professor University of Richmond, VA

1984-2005: Professor and Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia

2005 - : Professor emerita, University of Virginia

Writing and Lecturing:

Published articles and lectured in German and English about German literature, culture, and teaching methodology; in English and Latvian about Latvian culture, bilingualism, and Latvian dainas as a source of Latvian history.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From Amazon:

A world in turmoil is seen through the eyes of a child born during World War II in Latvia, part of the "bloodlands" of Europe. The author lived under Hitler and Stalin, and spent a short time in a Nazi internment camp as well as five years in a UN Displaced Persons camp. At age 10 she came to America on a troop transport ship and grew up in New York. Life in DP camps and in the overcrowded apartment of the new immigrants in New York are depicted in vignettes rich in detail. They show that at a time of mental and physical anguish, and scarcity of food and clothing, people of admirable resiliency lived a vibrant cultural life. Many vignettes have post scripts that jump ahead in time and tell how things worked out - happily, sadly, but most frequently miraculously.

From Goodreads:

This beautifully-written memoir from Dr. M.L. Ray addresses the aftermath of World War II as experienced by a young refugee child in Germany. Much has been written about the statistics of WWII. Less is available regarding its impact on civilians, refugees, and especially the children. Dr. Ray's book describes this view of life and importance of sustenance from "the village."

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

German Society Of Pennsylvania, 611 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, United States