Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Dark Hours


Over the Labor Day weekend I sat down (finally) ......and in about 2 1/2 hours had read the newest book by Gudrun Pauseway, DARK HOURS. WOW! What a powerful book. The author was born in Germany and lived through the Holocaust. She writes from her own personal experience of living in Germany during wartime.

The story is told as a letter from a grandmother to her granddaughter, Stephanie, as a 16th birthday present. Gisel, the grandmother writes the story of her own 16th birthday which was sixty years ago. Most of her birthday was spent trapped in the mangeled remains of a bomb shelter--there was complete darkness, limited food in a backpack that her brother was able to salvage, the responsibility of caring for her brothers and sisters--along with a stranger, and a dying stranger in the next room. How did she manage? Read the book!

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