8One Woman's Journey from Post-war Germany to the American Dream Elke Zell Bowman was born in 1945, on the eve of Nazi Germany's collapse. Enduring Shame tells her story-beginning at an orphanage where she was sent as an infant and continuing through the difficult years in post-war Germany to a life in the United States where she finally found a home and country.We follow Elke as she navigates the harsh conditions of the orphanage, her escapades as a rebellious young girl with a passion for poetry, and shocking reunion with her birth mother in the United States. Instead of finding love and salvation with her mother and half-sister, Elke is met with a loveless and merciless woman bent on shaming her daughter into subservience.Through her inner strength and commitment to survive, young Elke finds the care and nourishment she has yearned for in the love of another half-sister and in school under the mentorship of a school teacher-the profession Elke herself pursues when she leaves her mother and begins a new life in America.Elke is a retired high school teacher who taught English and German in Indiana for thirty-five years.