The memoirs were written in Netanya, Israel in 2000. Family history going back to the 19th century. Hilda Rosenthal and August Lederer married in 1903. They settled in Gladenbach. Their son Benno was born in 1904. Childhood recollections. Description of the Lederer household and his father's fancy for technical modernizations. Private studies in Hebrew. Benno attended the local primary school, since Gladenbach was too small to keep a separate Jewish school. No encounter with anti-Semitism during his childhood years. Outbreak of World War One and increasing patriotism. Recollection of his bar mitzvah celebration during the war. Benno was enrolled in the high school (Gymnasium) in Giessen, where he stayed with a Jewish family. Difficulties ob...