ESCAPE?FROM?PLAUEN tells the story of war's depravation but also tells the story of faith and the will to triumph against all odds.

"An artist as well as a writer, Renate Stoever has an artist's sensibility that lends beauty to her writing. As a result, the reader is not just an observer, but also a participant in her experience. This memoir of a remarkable life is a polished gem. It will keep you turning pages until the last word."

-Christine Royer, retired Vice-President of Public Affairs, Barnard College, N.Y.

"I've been a professional editor for more than thirty years, and Escape From Plauen is better writing than the work of most professional writers I've edited. This is an amazing story, and it is incredibly well written."

-Mike Slizewski, professional editor

"Parts of this book moved me to tears...creating powerful images of destruction...great choice of words describing the emotion, terror, and horror of war...as seen first hand through the eyes of a child. What a great read...riveting...."

-Carol Kreit, author of First Wives' Tool Kit.

This is a true story about the ravages of war seen through the eyes of a 9-year-old girl in Plauen, Germany.

The political and economic causes of what are considered by many to be the greatest armed struggle since the Great War have been widely coined into books and movies. In more ways then we would like to admit, we still live with the results of that victory, but other than "Slaughterhouse-Five," Kurt Vonnegut's fictionalized account of the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany in 1945, few works have been written about the actual events in the fire-storm of that devastation. None are seen through the eyes of an innocent child caught within the terror caused by events beyond comprehension.

ESCAPE?FROM?PLAUEN is a first-hand account of life in the German city of Plauen before Hitler's defeat, the end of Nazi Germany and through the destruction caused by the wrath of the Soviet Army. Caught between Stalin's advancing Communist Army in the East and the Allies march from the West, the women, children, and elderly of Germany had no place to hide long after the collapse of the Wehrmacht. What was there left to bomb in late 1944 and 1945 but women and children?

Renate was born in the German city of Plauen before the start of the Second World War. Enduring the daily hardships of the War, Renate and her family escaped to the West from Communist East Germany in 1947. Within a week of her 1953 arrival in the United States, Renate started to work in a small shop sewing beads on moccasins. A year later she used her artistic ability to become a top designer in the Lace and Embroidery industry.

Renate married in 1962, and helped her husband establish a successful Wall Street firm. After winning a writing competition in the New Yorker Staats Zeitung, a German-American weekly newspaper, friends encouraged her to spend more time writing.

Renate and her husband live in New Jersey.