In this extraordinary book, USA Today Bestselling author Marion Kummerow weaves a story of strength, heartbreak, and coming of age in the Third Reich. 17-year-old Lotte is headstrong and stubborn, impulsive and outspoken, and an avowed enemy to injustice. In Nazi Germany, this can cost you your life. Sent to the countryside by her mother to escape the worst of the war, Lotte longs to return to Berlin. Bored and lonely, she seeks an escape from the tedious daily routine of her remote hamlet. When four Jewish children turn to her for help, she finally finds a purpose: protect the children and help them to escape. Her act of humanity will cost her and those she loves, dearly. Because there are worse things than boredom. There is Ravensbrück. In the notorious concentration camp, girls die. Only women survive. "...a wonderfully engaging tale of resistance and resilience that echoes across the decades." "The truth must be told, and never forgotten." A heart wrenching novel of courage – perfect for readers of The Book Thief, Diary of Anne Frank, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Topics: Berlin, World War Two, WWII, German Literature, Historical Fiction, Resistance, European Literature, Heartbreaking Story of Love and Redemption, Jewish and Holocaust History, Concentration Camps, Espionage, Nazi Party, Gestapo, Holocaust, Forbidden Love, rebellious teenager, rescuing children, high stakes survival story, teen holocaust fiction Perfect for fans of Ann Bennett, Lucinda Riley, Dinah Jefferies, Victoria Hislop, Marius Gabriel, Tracy Chevalier, Fiona Valpy, Deborah Swift, Jenny Ashcroft, Petra Durst-Benning, Nicola Cornick, Janet MacLeod Trotter, Jean Grainger, Clare Flynn, Kate Furnivall, Kristin Hannah. Sharon Maas, Anna Jacobs, Helen Carey, Catherine Hokin, Sarah Lark, Tania Crosse, Rhys Bowen, Angela Petch, Hazel Gaynor, Roberta Kagan, Anna Stuart, Kate Hewitt, Ellie Midwood, Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger, Eoin Dempsey, Suzanne Goldring

In this extraordinary book, USA Today Bestselling author Marion Kummerow weaves a story of strength, heartbreak, and coming of age in the Third Reich. 17-year-old Lotte is headstrong and stubborn, impulsive and outspoken, and an avowed enemy to injustice. In Nazi Germany, this can cost you your life. Sent to the countryside by her mother to escape the worst of the war, Lotte longs to return to Berlin. Bored and lonely, she seeks an escape from the tedious daily routine of her remote hamlet. When four Jewish children turn to her for help, she finally finds a purpose: protect the children and help them to escape. Her act of humanity will cost her and those she loves, dearly. Because there are worse things than boredom. There is Ravensbrück. In the notorious concentration camp, girls die. Only women survive. "...a wonderfully engaging tale of resistance and resilience that echoes across the decades." "The truth must be told, and never forgotten." A heart wrenching novel of courage - perfect for readers of The Book Thief, Diary of Anne Frank, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

From the bestselling author of The Girl from Munich, a sweeping, dramatic tale of love and identity, inspired by a true story. After enduring the horror of Nazi Germany and the chaos of postwar occupation, Lotte Drescher and her family arrive in Australia in 1956 full of hope for a new life. It’s a land of opportunity, where Lotte and her husband Erich dream of giving their children the future they have always wanted. After years of struggling to find their feet as New Australians, Erich turns his skill as a wood carver into a successful business and Lotte makes a career out of her lifelong passion, photography. The sacrifices they have made finally seem worth it until Erich’s role in the trade union movement threatens to have him branded a communist and endanger their family. Then darker shadows of the past reach out to them from Germany, a world and a lifetime away. As the Vietnam War looms, an unexpected visitor forces Lotte to a turning point. Her decision will change her life forever . . . and will finally show her the true meaning of home. PRAISE FOR TANIA BLANCHARD ‘Captures the intensity of a brutal and unforgiving war, successfully weaving love, loss, desperation and, finally, hope into a gripping journey of self-discovery.’ Courier Mail ‘An epic tale, grand in scope … Packs an emotional punch that will reverberate far and wide.’ Weekly Times ‘A tumultuous journey from order to bedlam, and from naive acceptance of the status quo to the gradual getting of political wisdom.’ Sunday Age ‘An original and innovative take on the World War II genre that captures the hauntingly desperate essence of the war. Tania Blanchard has written yet another spectacular novel. Don’t miss this.’ Better Reading ‘A sweeping, dramatic tale of love and identity.’ Fraser Coast Chronicle

A pair of silver Regency candlesticks. Pieces of well-worn family jewelry. More than a thousand documents, letters, and photographs Lotte Meyerhoff's best friends risked their lives in Nazi Germany to safeguard these and other treasured heirlooms and mementos from her family and return them to her after the war. The Holocaust had left Lotte the lone survivor of her family, and these precious objects gave her back a crucial piece of her past. Four Girls from Berlin vividly recreates that past and tells the story of Lotte and her courageous non-Jewish friends Ilonka, Erica, and Ursula as they lived under the shadow of Hitler in Berlin. Written by Lotte's daughter, Marianne, this powerful memoir celebrates the unseverable bonds of friendship and a rich family legacy the Holocaust could not destroy. "What a delightful book, and important, too. It gives us the courage and inspiration to utterly reject the fatalistic idea that fratricide, polemic, and enmity between Christians and Jews is inevitable and unchangeable. Finally, it reminds us never to forget or fail to appreciate those forces of light that bear witness to, and instill hope for, mankind and our world." —Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, President, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews "Four Girls From Berlin is an evocative story of friendship, challenged in the most sinister environment. For Christians, it echoes the words of Jesus, 'greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends.' The friendship of these four women, three Christians and a Jew, speaks of a greater humanity that in the face of the Nazi horror could not be broken. I strongly recommend men and women of all faiths to learn from it." —The Venerable Lyle Dennen, Archdeacon, London, England

All But My Life is the unforgettable story of Gerda Weissmann Klein's six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. From her comfortable home in Bielitz (present-day Bielsko) in Poland to her miraculous survival and her liberation by American troops--including the man who was to become her husband--in Volary, Czechoslovakia, in 1945, Gerda takes the reader on a terrifying journey. Gerda's serene and idyllic childhood is shattered when Nazis march into Poland on September 3, 1939. Although the Weissmanns were permitted to live for a while in the basement of their home, they were eventually separated and sent to German labor camps. Over the next few years Gerda experienced the slow, inexorable stripping away of "all but her life." By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead. Despite her horrifying experiences, Klein conveys great strength of spirit and faith in humanity. In the darkness of the camps, Gerda and her young friends manage to create a community of friendship and love. Although stripped of the essence of life, they were able to survive the barbarity of their captors. Gerda's beautifully written story gives an invaluable message to everyone. It introduces them to last century's terrible history of devastation and prejudice, yet offers them hope that the effects of hatred can be overcome.

Examines the lives of eight women who were a part of the Nazi regime or played a role in its ascendency.

Between Dignity and Despair draws on the extraordinary memoirs, diaries, interviews, and letters of Jewish women and men to give us the first intimate portrait of Jewish life in Nazi Germany. Kaplan tells the story of Jews in Germany not from the hindsight of the Holocaust, nor by focusing on the persecutors, but from the bewildered and ambiguous perspective of Jews trying to navigate their daily lives in a world that was becoming more and more insane. Answering the charge that Jews should have left earlier, Kaplan shows that far from seeming inevitable, the Holocaust was impossible to foresee precisely because Nazi repression occurred in irregular and unpredictable steps until the massive violence of Novemer 1938. Then the flow of emigration turned into a torrent, only to be stopped by the war. By that time Jews had been evicted from their homes, robbed of their possessions and their livelihoods, shunned by their former friends, persecuted by their neighbors, and driven into forced labor. For those trapped in Germany, mere survival became a nightmare of increasingly desperate options. Many took their own lives to retain at least some dignity in death; others went underground and endured the fears of nightly bombings and the even greater terror of being discovered by the Nazis. Most were murdered. All were pressed to the limit of human endurance and human loneliness. Focusing on the fate of families and particularly women's experience, Between Dignity and Despair takes us into the neighborhoods, into the kitchens, shops, and schools, to give us the shape and texture, the very feel of what it was like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.