While researching the Internet to document the narrated genealogy of my Philipsborn family, I came across this intriguing article. A Philipsborn? In the Spanish Civil War? The only woman from her area of Germany to volunteer? No one in my immediate family seemed to know anything about this Clara Philipsborn, but my fascination with Spain, family, and the war conspired to set me on the path to find everything about her that I could. A copy of the Gestapo document, the source of the article, is located at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The paragraph under the category Begründung provided me with my next steps. I’ll translate, using my best genealogical German: “Philipsborn belonged to the International Brigades in ‘Red’ Spain and worked as a translator at the military hospital in ‘Okania’.” The name “Okania” led me to a novel of testimony about that very military hospital and a vignette on page 134 that was no less than a portrait of Clara, containing hints to intrigue and conflict. Through contact with Clara’s nephew, by then called Gerry Brent (“Putzi” in the book – spoiler!), with new-found colleagues in Spain, Germany, Austria and England, internet access to Soviet archives, correspondence with descendants of War-volunteers, visits to the Tamiment Library at New York University, and newspaper archives, I found myself with about 20 documents but no story. Clara needed a voice, and I hope you will hear it as you meet her in her fictional diary, Home So Far Away.