Theodore H. Hirschfield, ,born Helmut Hirschfeld in Prussia, Germany, on May 25, 1941, died June 15, 2011, of cardiac arrest in Lehigh Acres, Fla.

The poet's skill in recreating these emotion-draining memories in language is matched by his honesty of recall. Nothing is melodramatized or faked. The remembering adult does not stylize or sentimentalize what the child saw and felt. This is the human price paid for the resort to evil. This is what a child underwent, and these poems are the understanding that they record. German Requiem is a memorable book. --Louis D. Rubin, Jr., author of Comic Imagination in America