Jan Elvin
Local author Jan Elvin was interviewed for BookCast by Fairfax County Public Library Director Sam Clay.
Raised in Northern Virginia, Jan Elvin is the author of The Box From Braunau: In Search of My Father’s War. It recounts her efforts to understand her father through his war experiences.
The title of Jan Elvin’s book refers to a tin box given to her father by a slave laborer in Ebensee, a camp in Braunau, Austria, after it was liberated by the father's regiment.
For the book, Elvin interviewed family members, soldiers and concentration camp survivors and traveled to Austria for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp her father encountered during the war. She regularly attends the annual reunions of the 80th Infantry Division, in which her father served.