The Lebensborn programme provides a place of safety, medical care, good food: protection for the unborn and newborn of the German Reich. When it appears that this is not going to happen, a series of cruel twists – not all of them down to fate – gain Anneke a place in the Lebensborn in nearby Nijmegen. She is pregnant and confident that her Nazi soldier loves her enough to marry her. Meanwhile, the older, more glamorous Anneke is hugging close her own secret. None of the neighbours know, although the whispering has already started. A connection that may cost everybody dear, though for the time her secret is safe. She has not totally estranged herself however – her dearest friend, Isaak, is a lawyer working for the Jewish Council. When she was sent from Poland, she was told not to speak of it, and she has grown used to living with her mother’s protestant family, not celebrating the Sabbath or the other festivals. Cyrla is Polish, and her father is a Jew. For Cyrla and Anneke – cousins, who are almost identical, despite their three year age gap – it brings home the very dangers Cyrla was sent to her mother’s family to escape. Schiedam, Holland, 1941 and the Germans announce the first restrictions on Jews in the area. Emotional, powerful and bringing to light one more of the twisted implications of Nazi ideology as it played out in the mid-twentieth century. Summary: An examination of morality, freedom of choice and the power of love through the eyes of a young Jewish girl caught up in the Nazi Lebensborn programme.
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