Chopin Through the Window: An Autobiography

Franziska was a young girl of just fifteen when Adolf Hitler annexed her homeland, the Sudetenland, to Germany. While she was making plans to study philosophy and art history at the prestigious Karls University in Prague, the tides of war were ominously rolling toward her. Conscripted into the Red Cross as a nurse to tend wounded soldiers, her idyllic life ended, replaced by a fight for survival and a search for love. At the end of the war, she was evicted from her home by a series of inhumane laws meant to punish all Germans for the transgressions of the Nazi regime. From witnessing the losses imposed on civilians during war, she dedicated her life to seeking justice on behalf of others. The next seventy years of her life would play out across three continents and be touched by the Cold War and a civil war. Her past would often collide with her present in the most unlikely places and in unexpected ways. Praise for Chopin Through the Window" Chopin Through the Window is an enthralling memoir that tells the story of a young Czech woman of German ancestry caught up in the turmoil of World War II. So effortless is the writing, so entrancing is the story, that the book is impossible to put down. Ms. Stein's memoir should be required reading for history students. Her eye for detail, her unflinching honesty and her extraordinary memory make this an unforgettable read. More important, she recounts a slice of history that is not well known. She was a member of the German minority living in the Czechoslovakia when Hitler came to power and unflinchingly recounts the hope that ethnic Germans experienced when they first heard him speak, their gradual disillusionment, and the terror and uncertainty that they suffered when they were expelled with millions of other Germans from Czechoslovakia at war's end."-Eileen Welsome, winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and author of The Plutonium Files and The General and the Jaguar" When I met Franziska Stein in 2016, I knew that I had come into the company of an extraordinary woman. In her remarkable autobiography, Chopin Through the Window, she confirms my impression as she chronicles the incredible life she has led over the past nine decades. Her story is detailed and sweeping in scope, replete with events and episodes played out against the historical backdrops of the times and places where they unfolded. Throughout, she demonstrates time and again courage, resolve, family commitment, drive, and an unending quest for justice. Her book holds lessons for all of us, but especially for those who cannot at times see the way forward. Ms. Stein shows us in so many ways how we can cut through immense difficulties and move on, and in doing that she has done us all a favor. Get the book and you'll see what I mean." -U.S. Ambassador Johnny Young (Ret.) Sierra Leone, Togo, Bahrain and Slovenia.