Book description
Based on real events in Germany, this vividly told and deeply moving
novel tells of one woman's love for a fellow artist, her struggle to
survive the war and her desperation to keep alive the spirit of
creativity. Most novels about the Nazi period portray Germans as the
perpetrators of war and genocide. This work provides an authentic
insight into how ordinary Germans - distinguished only by their artistic
skill - suffered under Nazi rule and the catastrophe of war. Based on
letters, documents, interviews and on-the-ground research in Germany and
Poland, the novel follows a young aspiring writer, Maria Scholz, from
the time she arrives in Berlin in 1933 and meets sculptor Hermann
Blumenthal. They were to become key members of a community of artists at
the heart of Hitler's Berlin, part of an inner circle passively opposed
to the Nazi regime and who were presecuted or declared 'degenerate'.This
gripping narrative describes how they tried to keep alive free-spirited
creativity, and the values of a universal humanity, amid growing terror
of a police state, and it explores the tragedy that befell Maria as war
brought the fire-bombing of Berlin and the Russian invasion.'Temple s
command of the subject is exemplary. History with a heart . . .
featuring real people with whom we can identify and bleed.' - Otago
Daily Times Philip Temple is an award-winning New Zealand author and
photographer with more than 30 non-fiction books, guides and children's
books to his credit. He is also a leading television documentary writer
and editor. In his youth he was a prominent mountaineer, climbing in the
Southern Alps, and making original explorations and first ascents in New
Guinea and the sub-Antarctic. During the course of these he travelled
with such legendary mountain explorers as Heinrich Harrer and H.
W.'Bill' Tilman. He now lives in Dunedin.
