Showing results for "the women" in World War II & Holocaust

1945, Auschwitz: I stumble out of the gates, tightly grasping the hands of two smaller children. Hunger swirls in my stomach and the barren landscape swims before my eyes. I can barely believe it. We’re free. We survived. But what happens now… Sixteen-year-old Tasha Ancel turns to take one last look at the imposing place that stole her freedom and her childhood. She has no idea how she continued to live when so many others did not. For the first time in months, her heart beats with hope for her future and that of the smaller children who cling to her now.

Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side, understanding more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star.

England, 1959. Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime. Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades.

Germany, 1944. Taken from the camps to serve the Fuhrer himself, Anke Hoff has been assigned as midwife to one of Hitler’s inner circle. If she refuses, her family will die. Torn between her duty as a caregiver and her hatred for the regime she’s now a part of, Anke is quickly swept into a life unlike anything she’s ever known - and she discovers that many of those at the Berghof are just as trapped as she is. Soon, she’s falling for a man who will make her world more complicated still.

The Colley family is made of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks. Although Southerners, the Colleys try to remain neutral, a fact ignored by the Union militia who confiscate their livestock, burn their farm, and arrest their daughter, Adair, on charges of “enemy collaboration”. Yet as this innocent young woman soon discovers, fate can have a double edge. While imprisoned, she falls in love with her interrogator, a Union major who helps her escape.

1941: When Nancy’s world is blown apart by the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, she volunteers to travel to the Philippines to serve at the front. She soon finds herself working in a field hospital on the Bataan Peninsula in the thick of the fighting, experiencing the horrors of war first hand.

Jersey, 1940. In the quiet of the English Channel, war is brewing. When the Nazis first set foot on her island home, 16-year-old Marcy comes to realize that nothing will ever be the same. Fueled by the devastating disappearance of the man she loves and in defiance of her distant mother, Violet, she joins forces with fellow islander Louisa to aid Jersey’s secret resistance.

France, March 1944. Virginia Hall wasn't like the other young society women back home in Baltimore - she never wanted the debutante ball or silk gloves. Instead, she traded a safe life for adventure in Europe, and when her beloved second home is thrust into the dark days of war, she leaps in headfirst. Once she's recruited as an Allied spy, subverting the Nazis becomes her calling. But even the most cunning agent can be bested, and in wartime trusting the wrong person can prove fatal.

Anna Cavanaugh is a restless young widow and brilliant French teacher at an all-girls school in Washington, DC. Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan. Donovan has faith in her - and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison.

Hamburg, 1942. Seventeen-year-old Anna knows she can never tell her proud parents the truth about where she is going. She must hide the fact that she is pregnant, that the father of her unborn child is dead, and that she is on her way to a special maternity home, where her baby will be given to a perfect family. She tells herself that this is the best solution. She doesn’t expect to feel the rush of love for her beautiful baby boy in the white blanket or the devastation when he is snatched from her, never to be seen again.

Rome, 1943: Marina Tozzi adores her father Vittorio and working together in his art gallery is her only escape from the reality of the Nazi occupation. Not only has Marina inherited her father’s passion for art but she is earning a reputation as an expert in her own right.

It is 1940 and bombs are falling on London. Watching from her attic window, Charlotte sees enemy planes coming in over the city, and her neighbours' homes destroyed. Still grieving her beloved brother who never returned from France, Charlotte has moved away from her overbearing family and built a new life for herself. She works as a typist for the Ministry of Information, rents a room on the top floor of Mrs Callaghan's ramshackle house, and shares gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena.

An enthralling historical novel of the woman’s suffrage movement inspired by three courageous women who bravely risked their lives and liberty in the fight to win the vote.

It’s 1943 in London. Paige Miller, an ordinary shopgirl at the fabled department store Selfridges, falls for Danny, an American GI who comes by the books counter at the same time every day. As she slowly lets him into her heart, Paige realizes that Danny is keeping a secret. One that could change the course of the war—and both their lives.

Opal has always dreamed of leaving her small island home in Malta to study ballet in France. However, upon arriving with her cousin Celine and best friend Lulu, she quickly realizes that nothing is as expected. Opal is forced to mature rapidly in order to protect herself and her companions from exploitation and the looming threat of war. A fateful injury lands her in the care of Andrei, a young Russian doctor with whom she develops a profound bond. As the consequences of her choices begin to unfold, Opal faces the most difficult decision of her life—one that will shape her future forever.

After fleeing German-occupied Paris, Alix is back in her home in Belgrade, hoping to finally reunite with her parents. But her parents have fled with King Peter to ensure his safety. Alix and her father's deputy steward Drago's attempt to find them is derailed and they are forced to reside in the Serbian country home. But all is not lost when Alix finds Nikola in the city - the man she was arranged to marry before war broke out. She has more in common with him than ever expected, and together with Drago they join a new Resistance.

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Berlin, 1934. Homes once filled with laughter stand empty as the Nazi party’s grip on the city tightens. When Anna Tiegel’s beautiful best friend catches Reich Minister Goebbels’ special attention, an impulsive act to save her brings Anna under his unforgiving scrutiny. First, she loses her job, then slowly, mercilessly, she finds her life stripped away. After her father is killed by the Nazis, Anna’s final hope is to escape to America with her boyfriend Eddy, but when she reaches his apartment on the agreed date, she finds it deserted.

London, 1940. After her fiancé breaks off their engagement, Evelyn decides to do her part for the war effort by signing up for construction work on Waterloo Bridge. Grieving after her little boy dies in an air raid, Gwen is completely lost when her husband sends their younger children to the countryside for safety. Enlisting as a construction worker, she is partnered with cheerful Evelyn. The two women strike up a heartwarming friendship.

Fifteen-year-old Kate lives a rarefied life of wealth and privilege in the pre-war Hong Kong expatriate community, but when the Japanese invade she’s interned in squalid Stanley Camp with her parents. Enduring cramped conditions, humiliation, disease, and starvation, Kate befriends seventeen-year-old Charles, who is half Chinese, and they give their hearts to each other under the orchid tree. Meanwhile, forty miles away in Portuguese Macau, thirteen-year-old Sofia’s suspicions are aroused when her father invites a Japanese family to dinner.