What Are You Doing Here?

Walter gives us a vivid account of the impact on his life and that of his family of Austria's overnight annexation by Germany in March 1938. As a 16 year old, he has retained clear memories of the unrest and uncertainty in the preceding weeks and the horrific events that followed. Walter and his parents finally managed to reach England where he and his father set up a self-taught watch-repair business and his mother worked as a cook. Walter later joined the Royal Air Force where he learned to be an instrument repairer. He was able to put his bilingual skills to good use in Germany before starting a new life in Canada where he survived many setbacks and disappointments before fulfilling his vocation as a minister in the United Church of Canada. It is a story of triumph over adversity, richly and honestly told. It is also a story of forced exile, emigration and adaptation as a young adult to a new culture that will continue in varying forms until human beings can learn to live without the need to oppress minorities.