Towards the Light at the End of the Tunnel

About the Book

Towards the Light at the End of the Tunnel is the autobiography of Gisela H. Schneider, a German civilian who experienced a hair-raising childhood and adolescence growing up in Hitler’s Third Reich. After World War II, the author attempted under extremely dangerous conditions to find her brother and their mother and reunite their scattered family. The family lived behind the Iron Curtain for many years although the author herself was able to escape to West Germany in 1946 with the help of cousins. The author married soon afterwards and eventually immigrated with her husband and four children to the United States. But life in her new country was not without its personal challenges. Her marriage was not a happy one. After many years, she at last found the courage and determination to establish a new and rewarding life for herself on her own terms. Ms. Schneider’s story is a riveting and inspirational tale of hope and survival under almost-unimaginable conditions. Considered in the historical context of her time, Towards the Light at the End of the Tunnel also presents a point of view of world events that is still very little known or even acknowledged in the United States.

About the Author

Gisela H. Schneider was born in Berlin and spent her eventful childhood and teenage years growing up in Germany during the Great Depression and World War II. After the war, she and her mother and brother lived in a small village near the Baltic Sea in the Russian-occupied part of the country. After escaping from behind the Iron Curtain to postwar West Germany, she married and had four children and lived for many years in the south of Germany. In 1959 she and her husband and children immigrated to the United States, where their fifth and last child was born. At the same time that she was busy raising her family, Ms. Schneider joined the workforce in her new country. She eventually became a histopathology laboratory technologist and over the years has been employed in several San Francisco Bay Area hospitals. At present, she is working at the University of California, San Francisco. Writing her life’s story was originally meant as a legacy for her children and grandchildren, who until recently knew nothing about her life before her marriage. The author currently lives in Walnut Creek, California.