ThoughtGallery.org > Alexis Clark | Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance

Alexis Clark | Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance

Join us at Book Culture on Columbus to celebrate the release of Alexis Clark’s Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance on Wednesday, May 16th at 7pm! 

A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front

This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the U.S. military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler’s army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Eleanor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked–and segregated–Western town. The army figured that the risk of fraternization between black nurses and white German POWs was almost nil.

Brought together by unlikely circumstances and racist assumptions, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their dramatic story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war.

Based on a New York Times story by Clark that drew national attention, Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court’s Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage–revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection in one of history’s most violent conflicts.

Previously an editor at Town & Country magazine, Alexis Clark is a freelance journalist who has written for the New York Times, Yahoo, The Root, Condé Nast Traveler, and other publications. An alumna of Spelman College, Clark holds master’s degrees from the University of Virginia and Columbia Journalism School, where she’s currently an adjunct professor. She lives in New York City.











When: Wed., May. 16, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Where: Book Culture on Columbus
450 Columbus Ave.

Price: Free
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Join us at Book Culture on Columbus to celebrate the release of Alexis Clark’s Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance on Wednesday, May 16th at 7pm! 

A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front

This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the U.S. military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler’s army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Eleanor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked–and segregated–Western town. The army figured that the risk of fraternization between black nurses and white German POWs was almost nil.

Brought together by unlikely circumstances and racist assumptions, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their dramatic story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war.

Based on a New York Times story by Clark that drew national attention, Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court’s Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage–revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection in one of history’s most violent conflicts.

Previously an editor at Town & Country magazine, Alexis Clark is a freelance journalist who has written for the New York Times, Yahoo, The Root, Condé Nast Traveler, and other publications. An alumna of Spelman College, Clark holds master’s degrees from the University of Virginia and Columbia Journalism School, where she’s currently an adjunct professor. She lives in New York City.

Buy tickets/get more info now