Three young Jewish sisters from Leipzig, Germany huddle together in the cold darkness of night waiting for their smugglers to rescue them and bring them to freedom in Belgium. Their mother, in a state of shock following Kristallnacht, is left behind, sedated in a psychiatric hospital. November 1938 begins the four year ordeal of the seven member Kroch family who endure unfathomable conditions in their fight for survival: imprisonment in French internment camps, hiding in a tiny tool shed, and adapting to the deplorable conditions of a Nazi prison. The memoirs of Alexandra, age eleven, and her sisters, fifteen year old Eva and fourteen year old Judith, interweave as they recount the true story of their escape from the Nazis.
Leaving behind their life of luxury, the girls describe unimaginable hunger, deprivation, and fear. Family love, music, and the close friendship of strangers are the essential ingredients that sustain them through the hardships they face. A narrative backdrop threads through the story, providing the socio-political context. From a historical perspective and from the three sisters' witness accounts, the listener will come to understand the progression of antisemitism in Germany and France, the course by which Hitler dismantled democracy, the role France adopted as Nazi collaborators, and how the Swiss policies towards Jews were executed.
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“The story is deeply moving and very disturbing. The material is compelling and reads beautifully.”
— Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon
Christa Lewis has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. She is a classically trained actress with a four-year conservatory training in voice and acting. She has a smart and funny vibe, but can also meet the moment in straightforward or somber works of nonfiction thanks to a seventeen-year stint as a newsreader. Christa speaks accent-free German fluently and offers a variety of believable accents and dialects. Her narrations are well received—there have been seven Earphones awards across a variety of genres—YA, literary fiction, biography and memoir—a 2019 SOVAS Voice Arts Award in Biography and two Audie nominations. Pippa Jayne was the Sultry Listeners’ Award Winner 2019 in the Erotica category.