“And even there — even in the midst of this inferno, those above
us remained our liberators. Though it would have been a very
tragic fate indeed to have been killed by our liberators! But
the bombs couldn’t distinguish between the persecutors and the
persecuted. We were simply lucky.” Hitler first came to power in
Germany when Ralph Giordano was 10; when he was 20, he survived
the devastating attack that flattened Hamburg. Read about some
of Giordano’s harrowing experiences as a half-Jewish German
citizen who survived the bombing of Germany and went on to
become an accomplished writer and producer. This interview has
been translated from its original German. Q. So, Mr. Giordano,
first of all I’d like to ask you to tell us: what was this
Hamburg of the pre-war period like, where you grew up? What did
you like about the city, what kind of a city was it? Could you
describe it? Hamburg was my nest. A wonderful childhood in the
first ten years (I was born in 1923) until 1933. [It was] home,
with a deep feeling of