World War Ii Women

It is 1939, and working-class Evie Bishop has received a scholarship to study mathematics at Oxford when tragedy turns her life upside down. Evie must seek a new future for herself and, inspired to contribute to the war effort, joins the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Ops Room plotter. Posted to a fighter station on the Sussex Coast, Evie befriends two other WAAFs. But the German bombers seem to know more than they should about the base’s operations, and soon Evie, May and Jess are caught up in a world more dangerous than they ever imagined.

Berlin, 1938. Samuel Weiss and Max von Hofmannsthal were best friends until the cruel antisemitism of Nazi Germany seeped into Berlin and tore their friendship apart. As Max rises in the ranks of the Nazi SS, Sam and his Jewish family find themselves simply struggling to survive.

World War II has just ended, and Britain has established the Control Commission for Germany, which oversees their zone of occupation. The Control Commission hires British civilians to work in Germany, rebuild the shattered nation, and prosecute war crimes. Somewhat aimless, bored with her job as a provincial schoolteacher, and unwilling to live with her overbearing mother any longer, 30-something Edith Graham applies for a job with the Commission - but she is also recruited by her cousin Leo, who is in the Secret Service.

Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While they did not know each other—in fact had never met—each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. In this absorbing and deeply moving account, award-winning clothes historian Lucy Adlington documents their stories, knitting together the experiences that fragmented their families and their lives. Adlington immortalizes these young women whose resilience, skills, strength, and kindness accompanied them through the darkest events in human history.

When Valerie de Vere Cole, the niece of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, makes her deep curtsey to the King and Queen of England, she knows she’s part of a world about to end. The daughter of a debt-ridden father and a neglectful mother, Valerie sees firsthand that war is imminent. Nevertheless, Valerie reinvents herself as a carefree and glittering young society woman, befriending other debutantes from England’s aristocracy as well as the vivacious Eunice Kennedy, daughter of the US Ambassador.

Mary DiNunzio gets a terrifying telephone call while she's working late, then goes home to find a shadow lurking at her front door. When a lawyer close to her turns up dead, Mary begins to suspect that the case she's been working on, involving the suicide of an Italian-American in an internment camp during World War II, may not be ancient history after all.

Anna has found solace and love in the colorful Romany camp. How long will this last under the watchful eye of a spurned and obsessed Nazi? In the unrelenting grimness of Ravensbrück, Moriah is caught in the web of Dagna's deadly ambition and schemes. Her chances for survival diminish with every passing moment. Shunned by society for the telling scar on her face, Elica struggles to live with the consequences of her selfish choices. Will she ever find love, redemption, or her son Theo, again?

Paris, 1940 German tanks rumble through the streets of Paris, forcing frightened citizens to flee. But not everyone has the luxury to leave. Camille Lacroix, a chambermaid at the world-famous Hôtel Ritz, must stay to support her family back home in Brittany. Desperate to earn money, Camille also acts as a lady’s maid for longtime guest Vivian Miller, a glamorous American widow—and a Nazi sympathizer. Despite her distrust of the woman, Camille turns to Vivian when her friend Rachel Berman needs help getting out of Paris. It’s then that Camille discovers that Vivian is not what she seems.

Europe, 1939. Hanne is an adolescent boy, born into a wealthy family from Belgrade. Realizing the Nazi threat is advancing toward the Balkans with giant strides, his parents are prepared to do anything to save their son’s life. The road to survival, however, is not easy. Just as Europe’s gates are about to shut down, Hanne and 1,100 other youths sail away on the Danube River. On board the ship, under appalling living conditions, Hanne falls in love with Inge, a young German Jewish girl.

Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle.

At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, 93-year-old Amelie O'Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor - Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer's confession in a Parisian church...

Epic in scope, Marge Piercy's sweeping novel encompasses the wide range of people and places marked by the Second World War. Each of her 10 narrators has a unique and compelling story that powerfully depicts his or her personality, desires, and fears. Special attention is given to the women of the war effort, like Bernice, who rebels against her domineering father to become a fighter pilot, and Naomi, a Parisian Jew sent to live with relatives in Detroit, whose twin sister, Jacqueline - still in France - joins the resistance against Nazi rule.

When Lizzie McDuffie, maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, boldly proclaimed herself FDR’s “Secretary-On-Colored-People’s-Affairs,” she became more than just a maid—she became the President’s eyes and ears into the Black community. After joining the White House to work alongside her husband, FDR’s personal valet, Lizzie managed to become completely indispensable to the Roosevelt family. Never shy about pointing out injustices, she advocated for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President.

Spring 1946: Best friends Vera Frankel and Edith Ban arrive in Naples. Refugees from Hungary, they managed to escape from a train headed for Auschwitz and spent the rest of the war hiding on an Austrian farm. Now, the two young women are starting new lives abroad. Armed with a letter of recommendation from an American officer, Vera finds work at the United States embassy where she falls in love with Captain Anton Wight. But as Vera and Edith grapple with the aftermath of the war, so too does Anton, and when he suddenly disappears, Vera is forced to change course.

2010, San Francisco. Anna Young is content with her life, running a bustling deli and taking care of her adored grandfather Max, who raised her. Max has never spoken of his past until he hands over an old map, the plans to a grand house just north of Berlin. With a shaking finger, he points to it and says, “I left something behind under the floorboards. Please bring it home before I die.”

In Secrets at Bletchley Park by Margaret Dickinson, two young women from very different backgrounds meet in the Second World War and are plunged into a life where security and discretion are paramount. But both have secrets of their own to hide.

Connie Fitzwalter never imagined that her passion for music would lead her into a world of danger and intrigue. When her old family friend, Stephen, who works for the foreign office, tells Connie the true scale of the violence against Jewish people in Germany and Austria, she can stand aside no longer. Together, Stephen and Connie devise a daring mission to help families escape the clutches of Nazi persecution. Under their cover as music enthusiasts traveling to high-society concerts in Europe, Connie and her sister Dottie begin by smuggling money and valuables for families over the border.

At the close of World War II, a shell-shocked solider, Jan Jovic, was forced to inflict a game of life and death on a peaceful Bosnian community. In a few short hours, this young man was confronted by more love - and hate - than most experience in a lifetime. Years later, Jan has become a world-renowned writer with widespread influence in the United States, his past buried deep in his memory. Until at the most inopportune time, the game Jan witnessed comes back to haunt him...and unwittingly leads him to a beautiful but broken woman caught in an underworld of crime.

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.

She was peaches-and-cream innocence; he was a handsome war hero. Both had royal blood coursing through their veins. The marriage of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt Philip Mountbatten in November 1947 is remembered as the beginning of an extraordinary lifelong union but success was not guaranteed. Elizabeth and Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy plunges us back into 1940s Britain where a teenage Princess fell in love with a foreign Prince.