The Nazi Officer’s Wife is about one lady surviving the Holocaust The  book was written by Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin published by William Morrow, NY, 1999. Edith  was born in the in the early 1920’s and similar to many in Austria was Jewish. They did not have a strict Jewish home and identified as Austrian more than Jewish Austrian. The family made a middle income living, the children were expected and did attend post secondary and life would continue. At the time the Nazi’s invaded Austria, Edith was one credit away from becoming a lawyer. The Nazi’s restricted all the rights of Jews and it is always surprising to me how any country the Nazi took over quickly embraced the new government’s regulations.

The Jews of Austria saw the writing on the wall and given they had very few rights and many regulations to be controlled (people on the internet think they are being watched, the Nazis tried to watch everybody without the internet) tried to leave the country. Most countries did not want too many Jews and many had to stay. Edith took a different route she went to Germany, for in Germany unlike the rest of the world, women were expected to raise children and take care of the men (in other countries, women were expected to take the place of men in the factories). Edith eventually met a low ranking officer and as long as they did not talk politics but kept the conversation to keeping the house clean and looking after children. All was okay. The book discusses how the Germany bureaucracy tried to keep track of people so Edith was always trying to find ways to stay off the official matters – one method was volunteer for the Red Cross allowed extra food rations.

At the end of the war, Edith skills as a lawyer were needed for she became a judge to help the city rebuild. Eventually Edith left Germany and lived most of her adult life in England and then Israel.

One of the more interesting sentences is when an idea is idiotic to begin with its application never makes any sense.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, everyday there are ideas to make money on the markets – some of them are good, some of them are less so. When you consider the ideas think of the implementation and the consequences of the ideas. One idea that has been good for many years is buy profitable companies which pay a dividend. As look as the company remains profitable you do not have to do anything except reap in dividends and higher multiples paid for the stock.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.