My Crossings

About the Book

A factual description and eventual fate of each of the six ocean liners that transported the author across the Atlantic Ocean, the first time as an eleven year old boy escaping Nazi Germany to be placed in a foster home in the United States. After returning to his native land while serving as a GI in the US Army in World War II, he went on to become an American educator who took on some highly interesting assignments such as becoming the first American co-principal of the unique bilingual German-American school of Berlin, the John F. Kennedy School. The book also includes items of musical history about the author’s parents who were both part of the classical music recital scene in Germany and in the United States before and after the first World War. The book is an intensely autobiographical and highly personal account of events during the momentous times of the 20th Century.

About the Author

The author, Rudi Lea, tells how he crossed the Atlantic Ocean six times on ocean liners before planes took over. He was a member of the first group of German Jewish children to leave Berlin, because of the Nazi take-over of Germany, to be raised by a foster family in the United States. His real parents were prominent musicians in Germany, largely before he was born. He returned to the country of his birth as an American GI during World War II, taking part in the final defeat of Nazi Germany, and then again, later, as the first American principal of Berlin’s famous bi-national and bilingual John F. Kennedy School. Lea had a notable career in public education both in the United States and in Germany, and now lives in semi-retirement in the Philadelphia suburbs.