I was born as Yvonne Zündler in the mid 1950ies near Innsbruck. Most of my childhood I spent on the alp farm of my grandparents. Even today I am not scared of cows and pigs.
After my higher school certificate I considered whether studies or training would be best for me. I decided for training; after several further trainings I went into business for myself.
I married in 1977. Although the marriage only lasted for a few years as my husband was very caring in the beginning and developed to a domestic tyrant and wanted to forbid me working, two wonderful daughters resulted from it.
In the end of the 1990ies one of my daughters told me to have heard about a man doing horoscopes and enjoying a large clientele. By the advice of a friend she would have visited these Indian herself and had him make a horoscope for her. Just for fun I drove a few kilometers over land to have him make a horoscope of me as well.
I met a small man who was almost hermetically blocked off by a large amount of women in Indian dresses. The whole matter seemed quite strange to me and I decided to get to the bottom of it. As I knew my business being in good hands, one of my daughters had joined in, I allowed myself a time off and visited the man and his followers several times.
It didn’t take long until I found out that the great all-embracive love the man was always preaching existed only for the public. The women surrounding him were always observing each other. Each of them was eager to get as much attention as possible of the man. The final results of my research you can read in my book ‘Amidst the scum’, which I had offered to several publishers in vain and was published by Hans Georg van Herste only.
A few years later I met Mrs. Edith Krause on the book fair in Leipzig. She had caught my eye several times because she was very small and walked with a limb. She tried to place a scripture at several publishers but nobody took the time to even look at it. A few hours later I met her again in a smoker’s corner. She seemed to be disappointed and desperate. As I felt compassion, I got us coffee and tried to cheer her up. In the course of our talk she told me her incredible story. I didn’t understand why no publisher wanted to get the story. Then I informed Mr. van Herste and told him extracts. He was immediately delighted and promised to publish it if I sent him a complete scripture.
So I sat down and wrote the story the woman had told me. Furthermore I travelled to Frankfurt to get more details. Although the story shocked me very much I wrote the book ‘The silence of a life‘ to make public what happens around us without even knowing it and nobody notices what daily happens to defenseless children in such holy homes far from any control.
Both books caused a wave of comments, unfortunately not only fair ones. Therefore I decided to never appear in public myself. There are shady leagues and power holders of church with a long arm who don’t shy away from deeds of darkness to silence whistleblowers as described in ‘At the river of my life’ of Hans Georg van Herste.
I felt compassionate with many of my female heroes an often doubted whether I should publish the books at all. But I finally decided to show the world what happens behind partly very transparent sceneries. I had to realize more than once that manipulations of the kind I described were well known, but nobody did anything against it. Indifference, cowardice and fear care that children and women are maltreated. I always have to think of the three apes: to hear nothing to see nothing and to say nothing.
I wish that you my dear readers have a great heart and a big finger to put it into wounds now and then.
The Silence of a Life
Edith Krause, being five years old, strays through the ruins of Frankfurt on the Main. They pick her up, when she lies in the ruins of War completely exhausted. Her father had died on consumption, her mother had been committed to a mental hospital, thus the Welfare Office sent her to a children’s home.
Sister Ambrosia and the other nuns only convey an impression of decency and compassion to the outer world. Inside, unbelievable dramas take place, hard to beat in cruelty.
Edith turned out to be a good worker and therefore they declare her being feeble-minded. This way she has to work hard for the nuns for another six years although they actually should have released her for long. After that, she works in a hotel laundry and meets a nice couple. Now finally the tide is turning. She can look back on and reappraise her memories. Although she meets extreme opposition, she does not give up and even finds one of the perpetrators. In the end she turns her back to the world and delves into the silence of her life.
The author Yvonne Zuendler tells the story of a truly strong woman, who goes her way in spite of many setbacks and defamations and does not cease until she achieves her goal.
Thrilling. Realistic and outspoken.