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Consisting of the author’s journal entries and later commentary, Lull Before the Storm by Miriam Brooks Butterworth is a harrowing report on people and conditions in 1938 Germany just prior to World War II, when the author spent a summer studying at the University of Heidelberg and traveling widely on bicycle and foot. About the book, Detlef Leenan, Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus of the Free University of Berlin, says: “Miriam (‘Mims’) Butterworth first told me about her 1938 summer in Germany in 1959. I was spending a year with her family as a German exchange high schooler under the sponsorship of the American Field Service. I was extremely eager to learn about the Germany that Mims had witnessed and now brings spellbindingly to life in her annotated diary. I am thrilled that this historically invaluable and truly moving document is finally seeing the light of day. On her second day in Heidelberg, Mims writes, ‘This whole trip is exactly like a movie,’ referring to the beauty of the old villages and castles that she comes across on her bike tours along the Neckar and Rhine rivers. Nevertheless, the realities of the summer of 1938 quickly catch up with her, and more sinister scenes appear: signs warn against buying at Jewish shops; a fearful companion tells her, ‘Don’t look there,’ when passing a concentration camp; a policeman questions why she replies ‘Guten Tag’ to his ‘Heil Hitler.’ Germany was staring into an abyss. Mims clings to precisely observed individual scenes in which the various and sundry people that she runs into repress the truth before them, succumb to propaganda, distance themselves from politics, or simply try to enjoy life. She manages to capture that ‘lull before the storm’ in its whole colorful essence, without preaching, and thus masterfully succeeds in fully opening the eyes of her readers. This book will irresistibly enlighten, inspire, and fascinate all who look inside.” Now 98, Miriam (“Mims”) Butterworth is clear about her priorities and responsibilities: civil liberties cannot be taken for granted, and we who are privileged to live in this country must protect them for future generations. A faculty member of the Loomis Chaffee School, Mims was a vocal peace activist during the Vietnam War. She marched on Washington, witnessed the violence perpetrated by police at the 1968 Chicago Convention, where she was a delegate, and as a member of the People’s Delegation, attended the 1971 Paris Peace Talks. Later, she helped organize Connecticut’s support for the Freeze Movement aimed at halting the nuclear arms race. Appointed by Governor Ella Grasso in 1975, Mims served as Commissioner of the Public Utilities Control Authority, and went on to become acting President of Hartford College for Women. She served on the West Hartford Town Council and in 1984 traveled to Nicaragua as an official observer of the first elections under the new Sandanista government. Between 1988 and 1998, she made four more trips to Central America with the American Friends Service Committee and the Center for Global Education, reporting on conditions in Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
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BOOK STATISTICS ISBN 978-1-943826-24-7 6" x 9" paperback, 99 pages
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