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Triumph Over Destiny

During this interview, an Oelwein author talks about her family's fight for survival in Nazi-run Austria during World War II.

Host Charity Nebbe speaks with Peladija Woodson-Diers about her new novel "Triumph Over Destiny." 

She writes about her mother, Karonline Rink, meeting Adolph Hitler in 1938 at the tender age of 14. Rink's school class in the small Austrian village Bleiberg was required to hear Hitler speak to them. Karoline was in the first row and found out later that she should have saluted ("Heil Hitler") the dictator instead of shaking hands with him.  Later, as punishment for her father's opposition to Hitler, she was kidnapped by Nazi soldiers, sent to Germany and forced to work as slave laborer in a local restaurant. 

In "Triumph Over Destiny," Woodson-Diers tells of the many brutal challenges and hardships her mother and her family endured before they finally emigrated to Oelwein, Iowa, in 1951.  

Charity Nebbe is the host of IPR's Talk of Iowa
Dennis Reese was the mid-day host for Iowa Public Radio