Giselle and Mr Memphis

The journal of Ignatz Himmelsputz, survivor, dwarf and entertainer, written in 1974, when he lived in Frankfurt with Giselle, a transvestite singer and Vietnam War survivor. The narration flashes back to Nazi Germany and an SS officer who persecuted Ignatz. A compelling story of man’s inhumanity to man and the liberating elation of forgiveness.

This is the journal of Ignatz Himmelsputz, survivor, dwarf and entertainer. It is 1974 and Ignatz lives in Frankfurt with Giselle,who is the singer in his band, his teacher and a transvestite survivor of the Vietnam War. A chance meeting with Hermann, the son of Von Bühler, an SS Officer under whose control he was kept in the Nazi period, triggers in Ignatz a desire to get his story down: how he was forced to be the companion to Von Bühler’s sister who had Down’s Syndrome and how he witnessed the sister’s descent into the hell of the Nazi euthanasia programmes. He writes down his story interspersed with the detail of his struggles in helping Giselle to cope with her own past. He befriends Hermann and finally reconnects with the man who caused him so much suffering and is now a successful Child Psychologist. Together they are forced to confront their pasts… This compelling story of man’s inhumanity to man and the liberating elation of forgiveness, is a worthy parable for the twenty-first century.