Horst to Holyoke

An octogenarian immigrant father asked his American-born daughter to write a book about his early life, that is how Horst To Holyoke got started. Horst Ollmann was born in 1935 in Horst Seebad in the state of Pomerania on the Baltic Sea. You can find it on maps today as Niechorze, Poland. Horst recorded stories chronicling his childhood, WWII, life as a refugee, settling in Solingen, Germany, to emigrating to America in 1959. Horst's daughter Nicole was born in 1964 in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She picks up the narrative to share memories of her father. Stories and memories intertwine between father and daughter illustrating how perceptions, identity, and meaning-making are conjured through generational storytelling.