Talking Books with Gerhardt Roberts Author of Safe Harbor #Interview

R.F. Rabe (Gerhardt Roberts) grew up in Germany and has been a Professor of German for the past 35 years at various colleges and universities. In the 1970’s he served in the Army Security Agency as a German linguist and intelligence analyst. His passion is all things German: the language, the culture and the history.

You can visit his website at http://www.rfrabe.weebly.com.

Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us to the beginning? When did you come up with the idea to write your book?

I came up with the idea for Safe Harbor in 2014 after teaching a course on the Holocaust at Chapman University. Preparation for teaching involved reading about two dozen books on the subject.

Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

The publisher is Roberts Ink, a publishing firm my wife and I founded many years ago.

Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process?

Absolutely. The cover must catch the potential reader’s attention and give that reader a good idea of the themes of the book.

How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?

I found it difficult because it involved hundreds of hours of historical research, which explains why it took me six years to finally get it to press. My advice to other writers: be patient, take your time writing and edit, edit, edit! I went through seven revisions before I was finally happy with Safe Harbor.

What other books are you working on and when will they be published?

I just published another historical romance entitled The Wall Between Us, set in communist East Germany. The novel has to do with a young woman who falls in love with a young man, not knowing he is the Stasi Agent who arrested her father for “crimes against the State.”
In addition, my wife (Sheila Roberts) and I have just completed an historical novel about (mad) King Ludwig of Bavaria. The book will be available soon.

What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

The novel is set in Berlin in World War II and deals with so-called U-Boats (“submariners”), Jews who submerged under the surface of everyday life, hiding from the Nazis. It would surprise people to know that even after Joseph Goebbels declared Berlin “free of Jews” in 1943, 1,700 Jewish Berliners managed to survive in the city by living underground, many hidden and sheltered by non-Jewish friends and neighbors.

Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

The senselessness of hate and racism. It accomplishes nothing and has resulted in the deaths of many millions of people over the centuries.

In World War II Berlin, Jews such as Erich Reinhold, who can pass for Aryan, and his sweetheart, Nessa Baumgartner, go underground. In a city where Jewish life is being snuffed out, they soon find themselves in a world of false identification papers and forged ration cards, risking their lives to help others escape to freedom. Safety is a foreign word, danger is everywhere and love is a luxury they can’t afford. But maybe, in spite of danger and separation, they will find their safe harbor.