Helena Waddy

I was born in Southern England in 1945. My birthplace was the beautiful cathedral town of Winchester, where my grandparents still lived after my grandfather had taught for decades at Winchester College. Shortly thereafter, they moved to a Devonshire village on the edge of Dartmoor, so I spent many holidays in this idyllic spot. My father served in the Royal Navy during World War Two. In 1949 he became the headmaster of a “public” boarding school in Tonbridge, Kent. I spent my formative years in this town located in the “Garden of England.” Only when I was entering my teenage years did I become a boarding student at Benenden School, located deep in the Weald of Kent and surrounded by the lovely countryside of my home county, including acres of rhododendrons.

After spending three glorious years at Cambridge University to earn my degree in History, I soon followed my father to Southern California. Eventually, after my son Nicholas was born in 1974, I entered the Ph. D. program in History at the University of California, San Diego, in 1979. Five years later I had completed my dissertation and was headed for a year’s teaching appointment in Oregon. In 1985 I joined the faculty at SUNY Geneseo, where I have now been teaching courses in German History for twenty-five years. My first book, Images of Faith, appeared in 1991. Now my book, Oberammergau in the Nazi Era, is appearing just in time for my visit to the Passion Play village where I will attend one of the 2010 performances.