English professor Mary Bruce knows what the movie title "If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" means.

The Monmouth College faculty member, who is on sabbatical this semester, has just completed a busy travel schedule, and she couldn’t be blamed for having to think a moment in the morning before remembering exactly where she is.

In early February, Bruce returned to the U.S. from Europe, where one of her highlights was visiting her "old childhood haunts" in Germany. Her father, an attorney, had served as a diplomat there in the early 1950s, and one of his duties was to dismantle the Krupp cartel, which helped arm Germany during World War II.

"The Krupp cartel was the outfit that financed Hitler," said Bruce, who said she played in Krupp’s home as a young girl and swam in its indoor pool. "It was called Villa Hugel, and it was the Buckingham Palace of Germany. The Allies had their offices there. Swimming in Krupp’s pool was an unthinkable honor for most Germans."

Continued Bruce, "Mathias Betyna, a German friend of (MC faculty colleague) Bill Urban’s, learned about this and was fascinated. He told me that since I would be in the Netherlands anyway, why not train down to Germany, and he would help me find my childhood home. What I didn’t know is that Mathias had called the press and told them a walking piece of World War II history from Monmouth College would be in town … I was flabbergasted to see them there."

The curator of Villa Hugel, which is now a museum, opened it especially for Bruce, who was met by, among other media, the editor of one of northern Germany’s biggest newspapers (WAZ) and a photographer. Their coverage resulted in a full-page spread, which elicited great response from readers who "remembered."

The memories came flooding back to Bruce, as well.

"It was like walking into a time warp," said Bruce, who is writing a book about her childhood. "I was transported back to waiting for my daddy to come home. Villa Hugel had such imposing doors, and when I put my hand on a handle, it felt so familiar, just like I’d done it dozens of times before. I also remembered how to get to the pool, which is in the basement. It was like having a bit of a historical veil lift."

Bruce was born in Washington, D.C., and as a child she also lived in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Richmond, Birmingham and Memphis. However, her book will only focus on her years in Germany, which she said spanned from Christmas in 1949 to the beginning of 1953.

Bruce had written down many of her German memories a year ago, but the return to the country has given her much more literary fuel.

"I was able to go into my old home, which had been lived in by one of Hitler’s officers," she said. "And I was able to spend four hours visiting with our neighbor from across the street, who is now 85 years old."

Bruce is now back on U.S. soil, but she’s not in Monmouth. During her sabbatical, she’ll be based in Florida, but she’s traveled twice since her return from Germany. First, she headed to Chicago for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference Feb. 11-14. In addition to participating on a panel, Bruce delivered a talk on job opportunities for recent master’s degree recipients titled "Guerrilla Interviews: A Counterintuitive Approach to Snagging a Creative Writing Teaching Job."

"I wanted to talk about indirect ways to becoming a creative writing professor and how to sidestep sabotaging the interview," said Bruce. "I discussed paths to becoming a creative writing professor and built-in interview obstacles to avoid."

If it’s the following Wednesday, it must be Moscow. That’s where Bruce was Feb. 18-19 at the invitation of the Russian State University for the Humanities, which hosted an international conference on Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. Bruce, who was a Fulbright Scholar at the university in 2006, gave a talk titled "Abraham Lincoln: The Ideal and the Enigma," where she especially investigated "the Southern memory of Lincoln."

Another part of her presentation explored the parallels between two of Illinois’ favorite sons, presidents Lincoln and Barack Obama.

"When Lincoln took office (in 1861), everything was a big mess, much like it is now," Bruce said, who also noted that both men ascended to the presidency despite not coming from "aristocratic" families or having much governing experience.