The Expanding Circle:
An Adoption Odyssey
In 1958, faced with the inability to bear children, Marion and John Wolff return to Germany in search of a child to adopt. Only nineteen years earlier they had fled the country to escape the "Final Solution of the Jewish problem," and memories of their youth under the Nazi regime were still very vivid.
As the Wolffs traveled from town to town, visiting welfare agencies and inspecting orphanages, they encountered bureaucratic hurdles, children's homes that varied greatly in their philosophies of child rearing, and Germans who labeled them "foreigners." Everywhere they saw reminders of the Holocaust: railroad stations, cattle cars, the absence of Jewish names in telephone books. They detected no trace of Jewish life in many places where Jewish culture had flourished for centuries.
They found, however, four officials who saw in the Jewish couple's quest an opportunity to make amends for the past. Through dramatic coincidences they found Rebecca, the little girl they took home to the United States as their own.
The Expanding Circle is based on diaries and careful historical research. A list of sources, several photographs, and an epilogue are included.
A clear, understated style masks the emotional, suspenseful story. The Expanding Circle is suitable for teenage readers and anyone interested in adoption and Judaica.
Marion Freyer Wolff was born in Berlin, Germany, and came to the United States in December 1939. She is a retired mathematics teacher. Her first book, The Shrinking Circle: Memories of Nazi Berlin 1933--1939, was published in 1989 by UAHC Press. Her essay, "You Always Come Too Late and Leave Too Early," is included in the collection Dutiful Daughters, published in 1999 by Seal Press. She lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland. |
