Adelheid Holthuis ’71 Denz

Adelheid Holthuis ’71 Denz of San Antonio, Texas, is the author of Uprooted: The Story of an Immigrant, a novella about a young surgical nurse who comes into adulthood during the horrors of World War II Germany. It is based on a true story, and grapples with Adelheid’s late mother’s wrenching emotional odyssey from Nazi Germany to Holland, Michigan, to which Adelheid’s parents immigrated in the 1950s and where they spent the next 36 years. Adelheid’s father, in turn, had previously spent part of his childhood in Holland but had returned to Germany, serving with the Wehrmacht’s 116th Panzer (Windhund) Division and participating in actions including Operation Barbarossa in Russia, the Normandy Campaign in France and the Battle of Huertgen Forest in Germany.

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