It's 1944 and Anna's in the Sudetenland, her elder brother is at the front and her younger one is a fanatical member of the Nazi Youth. When she finds an escaped Russian soldier hiding in their barn, nearly dead, humanity conquers fear and she hides him in a disused bunker and continues to feed him despite knowing that if caught she'd be executed as a traitor. She doesn't dare tell even her mother. As the front approaches their village from the east it seems the Russian prisoner will soon be re-united with his comrades - but will Anna's already suspicious brother uncover her guilty secret first and expose her to a traitor's fate, and her family to destruction? An incredibly realistic and moving account of how one girl refuses to accept Nazi ideology and has the courage of her own conviction. A riveting insight into how the war affected the Sudetenland and its German and Czech population.

 

There are 160 pages in this book. This book was published 2004 by Andersen Press Ltd .

Gudrun Pausewang was born in 1928, and had to flee Hitler's Germany at the age of 17. She has been a teacher and head mistress in Germany, and also in Chile and Venezuela, where she lived for many years. She is a celebrated author in Germany, having written over 70 children's books, many of which have been translated into other languages, and she is the wrinner of several literature prizes.