As I did last week, I would like to give a little more insight into what it is like to publish a book.
Yesterday, Irena Karshenbaum http://irenakarshenbaum.com/ interviewed me for an article she is going to write for https://albertajewishnews.com/ .
We had a long virtual conversation and you can find already information about it online by visiting Irenas LinkedIn profile: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/irena-karshenbaum
Thank you very much for your interest in my book! I am really happy to be able to present my work.
Please send press inquiries to:
melaniecarinaschmoll(at)gmx.de
And you can download my brand-new Speakers Kit here:
For those who missed my backstory on the cover design, here is last week's blog post and the information on the Book Cover
Unfortunately, the publisher's typesetter did not take the advertised 7 days, but 12 days. There were probably problems with the endnotes - well, that's why I actually hired a professional, so that it wouldn't cause any problems and the expert would only have to click. Reality is once again different. When I finally received the proof of the first 20 pages after 2 emails and a phone call asking how things were going, I corrected it straight away and sent it back 2 hours later. Now it is back to... exactly: waiting. I hope that it really only takes 7 days for the complete book to be typeset. You always think that researching and writing takes up most of the time, but no, it is the waiting.
Many thanks for all the feedback on the preface of the book, which my newsletter subscribers were able to read exclusively in the January newsletter. You can also become part of the community by signing up here:
Last Monday marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The city of Hamburg took this event as an opportunity to make visits to memorial sites compulsory in future (https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/hamburg/KZ-Gedenkstaetten-Besuchspflicht-fuer-Hamburger-Schueler-geplant,gedenkstaettenbesuch100.html).
This makes Hamburg the third federal state after Bavaria and Saarland (from the coming school year) to make the visits compulsory. First of all, I see this as extremely positive and am pleased about it! However, the director of the Neuengamme Memorial also rightly pointed out that “the preparation and follow-up of the visits is critical”. “In addition, adults should also be encouraged to visit the memorials - because it is not only young people who have gaps in their knowledge”. I also feel vindicated by this statement: Holocaust education needs to become something for experts. We cannot ask teachers, most of whom have not even studied the subject in their academic studies, to take on something that needs to be done by society as a whole. More on this in my book.