About Mutti

At 91, Mutti like to talk about Berlin and how she grew up. She loves talking about the Busch fashion store, where she apprenticed at fourteen, and where she stayed until she was eighteen. It seems those four years were the highlight of her life.

The original owners of Busch’s fashion store were Jews. When the Nazis deported them to a labor camp after Kristallnacht, (the Night of Broken Glass) the new Nazi owner fired her. Mutti loves talking about Busch’s, but she doesn’t talk too much about what happened to her after she had to leave there.

Once, when she was visiting me in Provo, where I live, we sat down, I asked her guiding questions, and she told me what happened. I taped our conversation, and using her unusual life as an outline, wrote a novel about her efforts to stay ahead of the Nazis during this terrifying time.

My memoir, Carnival Girl, will be published in a few months, and I hope Walk on a Wire, the novel based on Mutti’s life, will be next!

I’ll write more about Mutti tomorrow.