Interview Author, Spy, Advocate

In Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall author Willner introduces readers to her Germanborn parents and their families and relates the lives they led during World War II and over the following tumultuous decades of the Cold War. At the core of the book—a sweeping tale of courage, resilience and hope—are stirring accounts of her father’s escape from Auschwitz and her mother’s flight from East Germany. The narrative also details how family members who remained under the oppressive heel of Soviet totalitarianism lived their lives behind the Iron Curtain, and how as a young U.S. Army intelligence officer Willner herself pierced that curtain during covert missions in East Berlin. Military History recently spoke with Willner about Forty Autumns, her intelligence missions and her next literary efforts.

What prompted you to write Forty Autumns?

The short answer is I realized I had a story. After the fall of the Berlin Wall I met my relatives who had been trapped behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany for 40 years. During the