Dorothea v. S. Lawson was born in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, during World War I. Most of her childhood was spent in Münster, Westphalia. After graduating from high school in 1935, the last 2 years under Nazi regulations and the Hitler salute, her family moved to Berlin.

In Berlin she lived through the turbulence of World War II and its terrible aftermath with her husband and small child. During the postwar years her family survived the starvation through dangerous food-hunting trips out to the country.

She lived in the American sector of Berlin. When the infamous Berlin Wall went up, she immigrated with her family to the United States in 1962.

Dorothea earned a master's degree in languages & linguistics from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. For many years she taught German at the university level in the Washington, DC area, to military personnel, and to senior citizens.

Still alive at age 95, she now lives in Oregon near her two daughters. 

Dorothea has been a speaker at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and was interviewed by an international documentary cable networkk.

Her memoir Laughter Wasn't Rationed took more than ten years to write, and has enjoyed a tremendous word of mouth referral and popularity. It is being used for world history courses at the college level.