Dena Rueb Romero’s memoir, All for You, tells an incredible story about a love affair between the author’s German Lutheran mother, Deta, and German Jewish father, Emil, a relationship that began in pre-Nazi Germany and lasted until Emil’s death in 1980. As Romero recounts in her intro, she learned details about her parents’ liaison when she was house-sitting for her mom and discovered letters that documented their seven-year wartime separation.

The book, part political and part social history, covers the growth of Nazism in Europe. But this is also a highly personal story: Deta’s 1937 emigration to England and her subsequent work as a nanny were acts of anti-Hitler resistance. Nonetheless, as a German citizen, her loyalties were questioned and she was imprisoned as an “enemy alien.”

Emil’s story – his emigration to the US and his work as a photographer in Hanover, New Hampshire – both lucky breaks, offers additional insights into who got out of Germany and why. Still, there is tragedy here; although Emil and Deta reunited in 1946, he was unable to get his parents, sister, or brother-in-law out of Germany, a reality that cast an ever-present pall on his relationships and business dealings.

All told, All for You not only documents an enduring, if troubled, love, but offers insights into trauma and survival.

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All for You by Dena Rueb Romero. She Writes Press, May 2024.

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.