INTRODUCTION

Ten Green Bottles can most accurately be categorized as a memoir in the creative non-fiction genre. I have written the work in the voice of my mother, Gerda Kosiner, who lived through a series of almost unbelievable experiences and survived. The events are as true and accurate as I can make them. The characters are real people, many of whom I know, who crossed her path or whose lives became entangled with hers. I have made every effort to verify scenes described in the book, including the exchange of words and thoughts that are expressed, although recreating verbatim dialogues would be impossible.

I feel myself more than a chronicler of detached circumstances. I was born in Shanghai, my mother tongue and cultural heritage are German, or more precisely, Viennese, and I became familiar with the story while listening to my mother’s telling and retelling of the tales that are included. I am so intimately aware of the facts of this life that it seems almost as if I had experienced it myself. After numerous consultations with the people who are named in the book and additional corroboration with outsiders who were able to add their accounts to my research, I feel confident in the veracity of the events I describe. Where my description of an event differs from the experiences of others who lived during the same period, I can only say that this is a personal account, filled with vignettes told to me throughout my lifetime. I have included descriptions of pieces of memorabilia that I have in my possession and treasure to this day, inanimate objects that travelled the course of the journey.

Vivian Jeanette Kaplan