On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Caught up in the tension leading up to the invasion and in the cross-fire that would spread throughout Europe in the ensuing years and eventually come to be known as World War II, there were many German families residing in Poland.
My Motherland My Fatherland is the true story of one of those families, told from the perspective of a young girl, third in a family of five children. Her mother had been born in Russia into an ethnic German family. Her father was an ethnic German residing in Poland but loyal to Germany and entranced by Hitler’s nationalism.
This is a story of intense societal upheaval and of a family’s struggle to survive amid a conflict destined to rip Europe asunder. It is touching at times as this child and her older brother lead the family through hell with pluck and ingenuity; and it is gruesome at other times, as this little girl witnesses events that no child should be called upon to endure.
It is a story of war, but more importantly, about how war changes the children who witness its cruelty and brutality and survive. Some lose feeling, some lose hope, and others lose their minds; in the end, they all lose their childhood, and this is yet another tragedy of war we do not hear about nearly enough.
My Motherland My Fatherland is the true story of one of those families, told from the perspective of a young girl, third in a family of five children. Her mother had been born in Russia into an ethnic German family. Her father was an ethnic German residing in Poland but loyal to Germany and entranced by Hitler’s nationalism.
This is a story of intense societal upheaval and of a family’s struggle to survive amid a conflict destined to rip Europe asunder. It is touching at times as this child and her older brother lead the family through hell with pluck and ingenuity; and it is gruesome at other times, as this little girl witnesses events that no child should be called upon to endure.
It is a story of war, but more importantly, about how war changes the children who witness its cruelty and brutality and survive. Some lose feeling, some lose hope, and others lose their minds; in the end, they all lose their childhood, and this is yet another tragedy of war we do not hear about nearly enough.
