{"id":5517,"date":"2015-09-07T11:38:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T10:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5517"},"modified":"2015-09-07T11:38:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T10:38:58","slug":"love-among-the-ruins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5517","title":{"rendered":"Love among the ruins"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Harry Leslie Smith has published his latest memoir at a time when the world is witnessing the most devastating refugee crisis since the Second World War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 
\nLove Among the Ruins<\/em>, although centred on his life with his late German wife Friede, is set against a backdrop of rations, mass starvation, a destroyed city and desperate German civilians. This memoir brings home the fact that, less than seventy years ago, the whole of Europe was suffering what the refugees are now suffering today.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn the aftermath of World War II, the world and Europe agreed a plan to help our friends as well as those who had actually been our enemies. Germany is once again at the heart of the refugee crisis, both in this book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s original context and the current context, but in a completely different way.<\/p>\n

 
\nWe are fortunate that Leslie Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s memoir is a timely reminder of our ability to be humane and moral.<\/p>\n

 
\nLeslie Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success as a political activist, writer and author of acclaimed Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Last Stand<\/em>, has stemmed from the integrity he carries with his political views and vision as well as his ability to use his own personal experiences to shed light on current situations. Although presented more subtly than in his last book, this memoir is yet another example of this skill he possesses.<\/p>\n

 
\nOften war memoirs start at the beginning of the war, yet Leslie Smith chooses to begin his after World War II, when his life with his soulmate Friede began. Although it may seem he is beginning with the end, this is where he believes his life truly began — when he met Friede.<\/p>\n

 
\nSet against a backdrop of destruction, the pair is able to become emotionally and physically entwined in a romance which goes against society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s judgments and perceptions. Harry is in the RAF, which helped bomb German cities into the ground under the leadership of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Bomber\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Harris. Friede and her family were these bombings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 victims.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn 1943, in one bombing raid alone, 80,000 civilians were killed or injured. This raid \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Operation Gomorrah \u00e2\u20ac\u201c set off the first \u00e2\u20ac\u0098firestorm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 caused by bombing. Hamburg was a major industrial centre and home to U-boat pens, shipyards, fuel depots and a centre for arms manufacture.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn the wasteland that was Hamburg, Harry and Friede persevere through the many hurdles they face: rations, being exploited by employers, being forbidden to marry, and being forced to move country with the RAF. There is no defining point when Harry falls in love with Friede, but it seems love at first sight may exist, even if it is in a black market in a war-torn German city.<\/p>\n

 
\nHe writes in a way which allows the reader to be able to see, smell, hear, taste and feel the city of Hamburg and the destruction and austerity which encompassed it. Yet he also allows hope and love to seep through the ruins, just as the title suggests.<\/p>\n

 
\nHarry Smith describes, in austerity-ridden Hamburg, the attitudes and behaviour of his fellow RAF comrades towards the refugees, particularly how they took advantage of the desperate and vulnerable girls.<\/p>\n

 
\nAlthough he admits to initially being \u00e2\u20ac\u015bemotionally detached\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 from the begging and starving Germans, Friede opens a window for him to become more compassionate.<\/p>\n

 
\nHe risks his job and livelihood by stealing from RAF supplies to provide food and medicine for her family and refuses to accept the common misconception that all Germans were Nazis. Instead he adopts the attitude that they were in fact human beings who were just as destroyed by the Nazi regime as Britain and its allies, if not more so.<\/p>\n

 
\nIndeed, underlying his accounts is a deep compassion for a homeland and society which was not long before his enemy.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy black and white opinions about Germany changed when I crossed through their borders and encountered a civilisation turned into a wasteland by aerial bombardment,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he writes.<\/p>\n

 
\nA particularly cutting paragraph is his description witnessing when a sick and exhausted horse dragging a cart collapses in the street. The owners did not rush to its side or show remorse at its loss but instead left it to the people of Hamburg to run out of their houses and up the street to cut chunks of it off to eat.<\/p>\n

 
\nEven though set in appalling circumstances, Harry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s memoir will not make the reader despair. Among the ruins, the human spirit prevails.<\/p>\n

 
\nThere is something humorous and light-hearted, too, in many of the passages. In his opening note to the reader he tells us, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSome say age brings wisdom, reason, serenity. I say bollocks: great age brings rheumatism, deafness, vascular degeneration and organ failure.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile Friede is treated like an alien when tested to see whether she can marry Harry – and misjudged by his own mother – he stands by her and the reader is left knowing that this union, which has survived prejudice, starvation and destruction, will surely endure.<\/p>\n

 
\nAlthough Leslie Smith covers a range of issues in his latest memoir — refugee crises, post-war austerity, despair, young love and passion, optimism in a pessimistic time and place — his overlying message seems to be that love, compassion and friendship are what ultimately matters, and what makes the world go round.<\/p>\n

 
\nSmith has given us many valuable messages through his writing, but perhaps this is the most important one.<\/p>\n

 
\nLove Among The Ruins<\/em> by Harry Leslie Smith will be published on September 10 by ICON BOOKS priced \u00c2\u01418.99<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry Leslie Smith has published his latest memoir at a time when the world is witnessing the most devastating refugee crisis since the Second World War.   Love Among the Ruins, although centred on his life with his late German wife Friede, is set against a backdrop of rations, mass starvation, a destroyed city and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[67],"tags":[155,387],"wps_subtitle":"A tale from the good soldier Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5518,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517\/revisions\/5518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}