Why a Booktrail?
Mid 1940s: Set in post war Germany – and just after the war in 1946, this gives a new perspective on the time and place at the start of the denazification process.
The Aftermath
What you need to know before your trail
In 1946 Hamburg, Colonel Lewis Morgan is placed in charge of rebuilding the devastated city not to mention the devastated lives of the people who live amongst the rubble and despair. He is given a stunning house on the banks of the River Elbe for him and his family but feeling strange bout this, he decides to let the owners of the house stay and live there with them.
Two very different worlds come together and the two families have very different experiences of war and of heartbreak and loss. By living together in such confined places, they are forced to interact with each other and discover the other families grief and emotions as they both try to look towards the new and emerging world.
Travel Guide
This war time story set not in England or France but in Germany was a unique spin on the war time story from the very beginning -an English family living in the war torn city made for a unique view of a city.
Rhidian’s descriptions really bring the horror and devastation of the city to heartbreaking life – you really feel as if you can start to imagine the horrors of what life was like in Germany in 1946.
“Schroeder was forced to steer a weaving course between the bomb craters that picked the cobbled road and the rivulets of people walking in dazed, languid fashion, going no where in particular…”
This at a time of denazification when the world powers were deciding what to do with Germany and how to divide the country up to ensure that nothing of this nature would happen again. With the country being divided up into occupation zones, each allied power controlled one part of the country.
With the novel taking place one year after the 2WW and at the time when the cold war was just starting, this is a significant and fascinating period of history.
“..they were like a people thrown back to the evolutionary stage of nomadic gatherers. The ghost of a tremendous noise hung over the scene”
How can people live during these times and how do they manage when all around them is death and destruction?
Booktrailer Review
Susan:
Everyone should read this book as an insight into the aftermath of war. Not only did I feel as if I really had visited war torn Hamburg, I got a real insight into the lives and emotions of the people who lived there. The mix of two very different families and a very varied mix of people within them is very intriguing as each of them is affected in different and sometime unexpected ways. Even the characters I didn’t like were those I cared about in some way – was war affecting their decisions? It was a different time after all. Ozi, the German orphan had a particularly strong and heartbreaking role in the story and his voice is one that will resonate with me for a long time.
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