INDIANAPOLIS — The FBI entered a butcher shop and took young Anneliese’s father away. Her mother, Alma, struggled to keep the store open. But after boycotts, swastikas covering the exterior and bricks shattering the windows, she shut the door forever and the family went on welfare.
Unable to reunite the family in any other way, Alma voluntarily took Anneliese and her brother and entered an internment camp on Ellis Island. Their crime? Although they had become American citizens, she and her husband had been born German. And it was 1942.
Anneliese Krauter of Indianapolis will share her story at the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Second Anniversary Celebration on Jan. 26, along with other German-Americans held in internment camps. The panel, from 1 to 3 p.m., includes Frances Ott Allen, Eberhard Fuhr, Anneliese Krauter, and Alfred Wohlpart.
At 3 p.m., Indianapolis writer, editor and cultural strategist David Hoppe and photographer Kristin Hess of the Indiana Humanities Council will discuss the stories behind the state’s food renaissance captured in Food for Thought: An Indiana Harvest with Debra Des Vignes, Spotlight Indianapolis host.
Norb Vonnegut – yes, he’s related to Kurt Vonnegut – takes the stage at 4 p.m. He describes himself as being fascinated by what can go wrong with having access to money, and he has turned his years of Wall Street experience (protecting clients, mind you) into successful novels.
The preceding events are free.
Then, at 6 p.m., the Heartland Actors Repertory Theater perform a staged reading of “So It Goes, an Evening with Kurt Vonnegut,” a play by Todd Grove. Tickets are $35, and seating is limited. Visit www.vonnegutlibrary.org or call 317-652-1954. The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is located in the Emelie Building, 340 N. Senate Ave.