I Was Not Afraid: The Guided Reflections of Sibylle Laurischk. Conversations with Ronald Stockton

Abstract

Description: These are the oral reflections of Sibylle Laurischk. There were six hours of interviews during a five-day period in March, 2020. The interviews took place in her home in Offenburg, Germany. They covered a range of topics including her youth, the youth culture in the 1960s and 1970s, her reflections on education at primary, secondary, and university levels, family history of her mother and father (refugees from eastern Germany), family experiences during the war, the post-war period, including the Russian occupation of East Germany, the continuing psychological impact of the war on Germans, and especially on her generation (she was born in 1954), her years at university in Heidelberg during which German youth were reassessing the meaning of Germany history and the role of their parents in what had happened during the war, her time in Israel and South Africa, marriage and motherhood, her involvement in local politics, her time on the city council, her election to the Bundestag, voting for President of Germany, her visits to America, her interests in women’s issues and minority issues, her practice of family law.