| Scope and content |
The Gerda Nischan Papers contains letters (1930, 1946-1947), handwritten in German between Otto Baumann and his wife, Barbara Hock, all but one written during the time Baumann was a German soldier in a French prisoner of war camp, 1946-1947, and typescripts in English by Baumann's daughter, Gerda Nischa, including an explanation of the letters, and 7 poems inspired by the letters. In 2010 Gerda Nischan wrote a book based on the letters titled Briefe an einen Kriegsgefangenen, an English translation written in 2014 ( Letters to a Prisoner of War), and a novel in German (2013) called Dieses neue Leben which are included in these papers. |
| Access restriction | No access restrictions. |
| Cite as |
Gerda Nischan Papers (#1000), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. |
| Terms of use | Copyright and literary property rights are retained by the donor for publications she wrote. Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law. |
| Acquisitions source |
Joyner- Gift of Ms. Gerda Nischan. |
| Biographical note | Gerda Nischan of Frankenthal, Germany was born on March 24th, 1940. Her father was a German soldier in a French POW camp from 1946-1947. She attended local schools until she left for Switzerland in 1958. Later she moved to England to attend an International Language School to further her education. In 1967 she left for the United States to work at the German Consulate in Philadelphia, and she met her future husband in 1967 while working there. The Nischans moved to Greenville, NC, in 1969, when Bodo accepted a position on the East Carolina University History Department faculty. After her move to North Carolina she started writing seriously and joined the East Carolina University Poetry Forum. She published many of her poems in Poetry Journals and started giving readings of her work in the U.S. as well as in Germany. In recent years she has published several books both fiction and non-fiction. |
