Why a Booktrail?
1945: The bombs are falling in Heidenfeld
The Vanishing Sky
What you need to know before your trail
In Heidenfeld, Etta and her husband Josef roam an empty nest: their eldest son Max is fighting on the frontlines, while fifteen-year-old Georg has swapped books for guns at a Nürnberg school for the Hitler Youth. At home, news of the war provokes daily doses of fear as the planes grow closer, taking one city after the next.
When Max is unexpectedly discharged, Etta is relieved to have her eldest home and safe. But soon after he arrives, it’s clear that the boy who left is not the same returned. With Georg a hundred miles away and a husband confronting his own difficult feelings toward patriotic duty, Etta alone must gather the pieces of a splintering family, determined to hold them together in the face of an uncertain future.
Travel Guide
Travel to wartime Germany
A novel about a mother’s pain and fear of losing her sons. A German family trying to survive the last days of WW2.
This story is apparently based on the author’s family. If so, this is a very tragic story in so many ways; the father is suffering from dementia and the youngest son is a member of the Hitler Youth The other son appears to be suffering from a form of schizophrenia.
The story of war and tragedy doesn’t take place in Berlin or a major city, but Heidenfeld and the German countryside. This gives the story a new and unique edge. People in the country were often forgotten. No support or focus on them like in the cities.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Vanishing Sky
Destination/location: Germany, Heidenfeld Author/guide: L. Annette Binder Departure Time: 1940s
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