© 2024, Sharon Kerestes, licensed under CC BY-NC-N Book Review Turke, Rosemarie Lengsfeld, and Garrett L. Turke. American Shoes: A Refugee’s Story. Portland: Beyond Words, 2022. by Sharon Kerestes American Shoes: A Refugee’s Story is the powerful memoir of Rosemarie Lengsfeld Turke whose childhood was derailed when she and her family were trapped in Nazi Germany during World War II. It is a story that Rosemarie kept locked away in her mind for almost 70 years, but at the age of 83 the memories began to spill out in conversations with her son Garrett. They both decided her story was one the rest of the world needed to hear. Rosemarie, nicknamed “Rosel,” was born in New York City in October of 1930 to German parents who had emigrated to the United States years before. Rosel and her family returned to Germany in 1934 to visit her ailing paternal grandfather. Their stay extended much longer than expected, and when they finally decided to return to America the authorities forbade it. Rosemarie and her family were forced to remain in Germany for the entirety of World War II. Her father was conscripted into the People’s Army. Meanwhile, Rosel, her mother (Mutti), and younger sister Eleonore (born in Germany) became refugees as they fled Allied attacks and traveled hundreds of miles on foot, always on the brink of starvation. They survived but not without scars. When the war was finally over the family hoped to return to America aboard one of the troop transport ships commissioned by President Truman, but only Rosel, an American citizen, was granted passage. At just fifteen, she made the heartbreaking decision to leave her family behind and board the SS Marine Flasher to return home alone. American Shoes tells Rosel’s story by focusing on her point of view as she makes the 10-day voyage from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York City. The journey is both literal and symbolic. As she gains physical distance from the realities of war-ravaged Europe, she struggles with how to move forward mentally and emotionally and put the past behind her. Throughout the journey, Rosel wrestles with her past, and the tumultuous twelve years the Lengfelds spent in Germany are described in the dreams that haunt Rosel each night aboard the ship. For the most part, this literary technique works well in allowing readers to experience the war years through her eyes. Relationships become an avenue for Rosel to make her symbolic journey while on her physical voyage across the ocean. Though Rosel’s encounters with the other passengers are mostly dramatized, they serve to demonstrate her struggle to break free from the fearful and oppressive ways in which the war conditioned her to live. She is befriended by Liesel, an older teenager whose stylish dress and buoyant personality stand in stark contrast to the other passengers who appear vacant and withdrawn. While Rosel can identify with those withdrawn passengers, she longs to be more uninhibited and joyful like Liesel, but she later learns that even Liesel, though seemingly unaffected by the war, harbors her own
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