The Swastika Tatto is about a German U-boat crewman who is captured by the Americans during WWII and sent to a POW camp in Arizona where he labors picking cotton for a Jewish farmer and comes face-to-face with the bigotry and intolerance he learned as a Hitler Youth. Through long months of internment, his only joy is his friendship with the farmer’s son who shows him the true meaning of humanity, individualism, and democracy and just as his repatriation to Germany is in sight, his camp bunk-mate is brutally murdered and he realizes he is the next target of the hard-core Nazis who really control the Arizona prison camp.
Writing has been my passion since I sat down at my mother's old Remington typewriter at the age of ten, pecking away in the cozy kitchen nook of my grandmother’s house in Los Angeles. Since then, I’ve worked as a reporter and editor for small community newspapers in Southern California and Arizona; but my best beat was as a stringer for the Los Angeles Times Ventura County Bureau (no longer in existence) for a number of years. It was there, under the tutelage of a great editor that I really learned to write. Since then, I’ve moved into the realm of fiction with Sedona: City of Refugees and then historical fiction with The Swastika Tattoo, a book about a real German POW camp located near Phoenix during WWII. That book received an honorable mention in Reader's Favorite international book contest. My newspaper column “Gerrymandering” received a first place award from the National Newspaper Association. While awards mean one’s work is recognized and appreciated by judges, nothing thrills me more than having someone tell me they have enjoyed my books. I have recently finished my memoir, Vision of a Happy Life, and plan to bring a few chapters onto Bublish.
Rudolf wants to break out of Camp Papago Park. He knows what he needs to get across the border into Mexico, but getting it is another matter.
Researching this book was a lot of fun. I have to admit, those Germans were an enterprising lot!
Book Excerpt
The Swastika Tattoo
Rudolf considered what he would have to do before hand: hoard food, gather clothes without the hated “PW” printed on them, and find a way to earn some American money. Above all, he needed several canteens filled with water to keep him going until he reached Mexico. Finally, and most important, his plan of escape had to receive approval from the highest German officers who really controlled the men at Camp Papago Park. The Americans thought they ruled the POWs, but Rudolf knew otherwise.
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