About the Author
Andie Newton is the USA Today bestselling author of The Girls from the Beach, The Girl from Vichy, and The Girl I Left Behind.
She writes gritty and emotional war stories about strong women. Andie holds a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in teaching. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, her two boys, and one very lazy cat.
You can find book club discussion questions on andienewton.com. Follow on Twitter: @AndieNewton FB: Andie Newton Author Page - Instagram: andienewtonauthor
It's probably a lesser-known fact or atrocity committed by the Nazi regime, the kidnapping of children, and it is one that has been used by other regimes to reinvent, brainwash and shape into people more amicable to their own agendas. During the Nazi regime over 200,000 Polish children and an unknown number of children from of other ethnicities were stolen and reprogrammed to forget their own cultural background and identity, to then be inserted into German families.
I remember watching a programme about survivors who remember being taken, and those who lost children. Not all of them survived the programmes - the special nurseries for instance - reluctant children for instance found themselves with a one-way ticket to death. Imagine how many cuckoo children never found out that they are victims of the natural selection, the most important criteria being the right physical appearance - the physical attributes of an Aryan child. It's so cold and calculated.
It's the heart of this premise. A small Czech family, who have the misfortune in this case to be the mothers of Aryan looking children who are on the hit list. They will do anything to keep them safe or in this case get them back from their kidnappers. Easier said than done in an environment where you can trust no person and betrayal has become the daily occurrence.
It's a story that will refresh memories of forgotten victims of that period in time. IT's also a story that speaks volumes about family relationships, loyalty and survival. It does have the dramatic voice of screenplay or screen version, with scenes drawn out for the emotional pauses and perfect shot. It's a question of how each reader falls in tune with that particular feeling or voice.
It's war, it's about family, and it gives a voice to the invisible victims.
Buy A Child for the Reich at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: One More Chapter pub date 9 Dec. 2022. Buy at Amazon com.