Sharon Ring’s moving story of her mum’s life in the Holocaust that she wrote after the death of her husband Phil Walker
FORMER Fleet Street writer Sharon Ring has written a fascinating book about her mum, uncle and wider family who were involved in the Holocaust. It is a rare account of Jewish survival in Berlin and adds a completely new aspect to the history of WW2.
Sharon was married for 28 years to Phil Walker who went on to be Deputy Editor of the Daily Mirror and Editor of The Daily Star. Phil, who was also Night Editor of the Daily Express, died in 2011 aged 67.
Sharon told the Drone: “The title of the book is Mischlinge, a word most of the population has ever heard of. It's the German word for mongrel, half-breed, mutt, usually used about dogs but the Nazis cruelly took it to describe men, women and children with mixed Aryan ancestry.
“It’s a word that condemned my mum and uncle — who were both born in Berlin — to be condemned as Jews even though they were raised as Christians and knew nothing of the Jewish faith.
“I’d been a lifelong journalist on national newspapers and magazines but was recently retired when I came across perhaps the best story of my career — within my own family. I stumbled across a memoir that had been hidden and unread for decades in my mum's wardrobe of all places. She was elderly by that time and showing me where she kept her will when I spotted this yellowing manuscript entitled “Quite An Adventure.”
“When I asked about it Mum said simply ‘Oh that’s my brother Heini’s memoir, it’s been in that strongbox box for 30 years and I’ve never read it. When I asked why not? she said simply ‘I decided long ago that all our happiness lay in looking forward and not back’ .”
"I knew Mum was born in Berlin and my Dad, a British soldier, had ‘rescued her ‘as she put it, made her a war bride at the end of the war, when she was 18, but I knew little of her story because she shared it with no-one.
“My discovery of the memoir led her to talk for the first time of her working class family life in Berlin throughout the Holocaust and World War Two. As the translated memoir arrived it was a revelation — my Uncle Heini had participated in the Berlin Olympics, been interrogated at Gestapo HQ and imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp — each chapter revealed him as a tragic Forest Gump popping up at the major historical events of the century.”
Sharon continued: “His eye-witness account and my mum’s testimony proved riveting. I was gripped and began archive research only to discover some of my family were shot, some murdered, some escaped while others lived long in London and on both sides of the Berlin Wall. Also, that there were more than 100,000 Mischlinge in Germany alone — and many thousands more across Europe, and yet the word and their stories are unknown and untold — until now.”
The book also goes on to tell of the wider family living in London, on both sides of the Berlin Wall and in Palestine as it becomes Israel.
She went on: “Let me reassure you this book is not grim. I know now why my mum insisted the world has more good than bad people in it — she met them — she tells of neighbours who risked their lives, the kindness of strangers and the support of her loving family which she often said gave her the happiest of lives.
“Despite being a journalist for more than 30 years — from Harlow NCTJ course to Fleet Street at 22, news and court reporter, feature writer on all the nationals to editing magazines from OK! to Heat and Love It! and launching my own idea for a travel title Escape Routes with EMAP, I knew nothing of this cracking story under my own nose for most of my life.
“The book took years to write, rewrite edit and research and I wrote to scores of agents before securing a top one I share with Simon Schama, Melvyn Bragg and Danielle Steel who secured me a publishers auction and Harper Collins in the UK and US.
“I hope journalists who have an interest in the ordinary history of working people will be interested in Mischlinge and help bring the story of racial hatred and belonging into the bestsellers lists - its message has never been more relevant.
MIschlinge is published by HarperElement available in hardback, Kindle and Audiobook formats on Amazon or in bookshops. BUY IT HERE.
Sharon Ring, formerly worked for the News of the World, Daily Mirror as a feature writer and later became Editor of OK! Magazine.
17 June 2026
