What inspired you to write your memoir?
After a speech I made to a group of women, someone from the audience came forth with the suggestion. “Do it for your children and let them know what you went through during World War II.
About your Book:
A Gift from the Enemy: A True Story of Escape in War-Time Italy, by Enrico Lamet, is a compelling childhood memoir of World War II.
Eric (Enrico) Lamet was born in Vienna, and spent the first eight years of his life in a comfortable middle-class atmosphere with his Jewish mother and father in Austria. At only 8 years of age, the Nazis invaded, changing the lives of all European Jews forever. His father went to Poland, never to return again, while Eric and his mother made a harrowing escape to Italy, seeking refuge in various mountain villages to evade capture.
Follow along as Eric and his mother face struggles in fascist WWII Italy, attempting to forge friendships and make a new home. Lamet recounts his mother’s struggles to adjust from sophisticated urban living to a primitive bleak setting. Despite the world crumbling around him, Eric still manages to live an adventurous life.
In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a dark time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit. Lamet offers a rare and historically important portrait, one you will not soon forget.
How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
My experience with Syracuse University Press that recommended using a commercial publisher, encouraged by the results I decided to go it alone.
How do you see writing a Memoir as different from writing other genres of books?
Writing a memoir is perhaps more difficult. Readership is limited unless the book is about a famous person.
Author Bio:
Enrico Lamet was born Erich Lifschutz on May 27, 1930, into an upper-middle-class Jewish family. Both his parents, born in Poland, moved to Vienna before the first Great War. On March 18, 1938, five days after the Anschluss, when German troops had marched into Vienna, Lamet’s family fled to Italy, where he spent most of the next twelve years. After World War II ended, Lamet settled in Naples with his family. He finished high school in that city and studied Engineering at the University of Naples.
In 1950 the family moved to the United States, where Lamet continued his engineering studies at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, near his family’s home. Deciding that business would be more in keeping with his personality, he embarked on a business career. Over the years he became involved in a variety of enterprises until his eventual retirement as a CEO in 1992.
Fluent in German, Italian, English, Spanish, and Yiddish, Lamet served as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department and taught Italian for several years. Lamet has studied piano and voice and, to this day, enjoys performing Neapolitan songs.
Lamet has three children, two stepchildren, and seven granddaughters. They were the reason this book was written. He and his wife spend their time in Pittsfield, Mass.
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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/513421.Enrico_Lamet?from_search=true
