Historical Fiction
Date Published: March 15, 2017
***An IWIC Hall of Fame Novel***
***Winner 2017 National Indie Excellence Award***
"This book needs to join the ranks of the classic survivor stories of WWII such as "Diary of Anne Frank" and "Man's Search for Meaning". It is truly that amazing!" InD'taleMagazine
"This family saga is wonderfully written and, aside from the emotional ramifications, very easy to read. I stayed up too late a couple of nights reading it...I highly recommend this book!" Long and Short Reviews
Spanning thirteen years from 1940 to 1953 and set against the epic panorama of WWII, author Annette Oppenlander's SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND is a sweeping saga of family, love, and betrayal that illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the children's war.
SURVIVING THE FATHERLAND tells the true and heart-wrenching stories of Lilly and Günter struggling with the terror-filled reality of life in the Third Reich, each embarking on their own dangerous path toward survival, freedom, and ultimately each other. Based on the author's own family and anchored in historical facts, this story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the strength of war children.
When her father goes off to war, seven-year-old Lilly is left with an unkind mother who favors her brother and chooses to ignore the lecherous pedophile next door. A few blocks away, twelve-year-old Günter also looses his father to the draft and quickly takes charge of supplementing his family's ever-dwindling rations by any means necessary.
As the war escalates and bombs begin to rain, Lilly and Günter's lives spiral out of control. Every day is a fight for survival. On a quest for firewood, Lilly encounters a dying soldier and steals her father's last suit to help the man escape. Barely sixteen, Günter ignores his draft call and embarks as a fugitive on a harrowing 47-day ordeal--always just one step away from execution.
When at last the war ends, Günter grapples with his brother's severe PTSD and the fact that none of his classmates survived. Welcoming denazification, Lilly takes a desperate step to rid herself once and for all of her disgusting neighbor's grip. When Lilly and Günter meet in 1949, their love affair is like any other. Or so it seems. But old wounds and secrets have a way of rising to the surface once more.
Surviving the Fatherland/Annette Oppenlander
Excerpt 1
Chapter One
Lilly: May 1940
For me the war began, not with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, but with my father’s lie. I was seven at the time, a skinny thing with pigtails and bony knees, dressed in my mother’s lumpy hand-knitted sweaters, a girl who loved her father more than anything.
It was May of 1940, my favorite time of year when the air is filled with the smell of cut grass and lilacs, promising excursions to town and the cafes in the hilly land I called home.
Like any other weekend, my father came home that Friday carrying a heavy briefcase of folders. Only this time, he flung his case in the corner of the hallway like it was a bag of garbage. You have to understand. My father is a neat freak, a man who keeps himself and everything he touches in absolute order. And so even at seven—even before he said those fateful words—I knew something was different.
My father had been named after the German emperor, Wilhelm, and Mutti called him Willi, but to me he was always Vati.
Ignoring me, he hurried into the kitchen, his eyes bright with excitement. “I’ve been drafted.”
At the sink, Mutti abruptly dropped her sponge and stared at him. Her mouth opened, then closed without a sound.
I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I didn’t understand the meaning of a lie, yet I felt it even then. Like others detect an oncoming thunderstorm, pressure builds behind my forehead, a heaviness in my bones. There is something in the way the liar moves, his limbs hang stiffly on the body as if his soul cringes. His look at me is fleeting and there is something artificial in his voice.
At that moment I knew Vati was hiding something from us.
“They want me there Monday. I’ll be a captain.” His voice trembled as he sank into a chair, still wearing his coat and hat.
“But that’s in three days.” Mutti picked up Burkhart, my little brother who was a just a toddler and had begun to whine. “It’s fine,” she soothed as she paced the length of the kitchen, the click-click of her heels like an accusation.
I frowned and moved closer to my father. Since my brother’s birth, Mutti had been spending every minute with the baby. No matter how well I behaved, how I did what she asked, I rarely succeeded drawing her eyes away from my brother. It annoyed me to no end that I couldn’t stop myself from trying.
“Vati, where are you going?” I asked, secure in the knowledge that my little brother wouldn’t draw away his attention.
My father’s cheeks glowed with excitement. As if he hadn’t heard me, he rushed back into the hallway and knelt in front of the wardrobe. I followed.
One door gaped open, revealing a gray military uniform. He was rummaging below.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just a minute.” He emerged with a pair of shiny black boots.
He knelt at my level and to this day I remember smelling the cologne he used every morning, a mix of spice and citrus.
“I am packing.”
“Where are you going?” Vati had never been away, not even for one night. In fact, he and Mutti had strict routines, and these were dictated by the clock. We ate every night at six thirty sharp. Even on Sundays. Breakfast was at seven in the morning. Clothes never ever lay on the floor, each item brushed and aired and returned to its spot in the closet. Life was laid out in rules, washing hands before dinner, carrying a clean handkerchief at all times and always, always looking spotless when leaving the house.
He smoothed the pants of his uniform. “I’ll be helping out in the war.”
“Will you be back for my birthday?” My birthday was on June fourth and I worried about our customary visits to town. In the window of Wiesner, our local toy store, I’d discovered a Schildkröt doll. Her name was Inge and I wanted her badly. Vati said she looked just like me, with blond hair and this pretty red-checkered dress with a white apron and white patent shoes you could take off.
As Vati lifted me in the air and turned in a circle, I shrieked in surprise and delight. I was flying.
“They want me after all! With all my experience, they should be glad.”
About the Author
Annette Oppenlander is an award-winning writer, literary coach and educator. As a bestselling historical novelist, Oppenlander is known for her authentic characters and stories based on true events, coming alive in well-researched settings. Having lived in Germany the first half of her life and the second half in various parts in the U.S., Oppenlander inspires readers by illuminating story questions as relevant today as they were in the past. Oppenlander’s bestselling true WWII story, Surviving the Fatherland, was elected to IWIC’s Hall of Fame and won the 2017 National Indie Excellence Award. Her historical time-travel trilogy, Escape from the Past, takes readers to the German Middle Ages and the Wild West. Uniquely, Oppenlander weaves actual historical figures and events into her plots, giving readers a flavor of true history while enjoying a good story. Oppenlander shares her knowledge through writing workshops at colleges, libraries and schools. She also offers vivid presentations and author visits. The mother of fraternal twins and a son, she lives with her husband and old mutt, Mocha, in Bloomington, Ind.
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Where do you get inspiration for your stories?
I find inspiration in the smallest details and often while I travel. I exclusively write historical fiction, so I am always on the lookout for the next idea. In 2012, I visited the ruins of medieval Castle Hanstein in Thuringia, Germany. Walking through the ancient ruins, I felt the walls talking to me. I tried imagining how life would’ve been in the 15th century. On a wall inside a restored bedchamber, I read about a famous knight who’d ruled here and been in a feud with an evil duke. This was the beginning of the ‘Escape from the Past’ trilogy, a time-travel adventure set at Castle Hanstein.
During another trip I found that Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, had lived in this little town along the Rhine River. Well, that seed may one day become another novel. I’m also interested in certain eras like WWII, the American Civil War and the prohibition era. The inspiration for ‘Surviving the Fatherland’ came from the stories of my parents who’d lived through WWII as German war children.
How did you do research for your book?
I recorded many hours of discussion with my parents who were 7 and 11 when their fathers left for the war. I dug through our family photo albums and unearthed many interesting shots. In addition to this primary research, I read several books on Russian gulags though none of that material made it into the book (will be in another novel). I visited the archives of my hometown, Solingen, where most of the story takes place, walked the streets, and read a number of books about the time period to get a good feel for the technology and daily lives of Germans in the 1940s and early 1950s. I found records of the RAF bombings of Solingen. The list goes on. In all, it took me 15 years to put this novel together.
Do you have another profession besides writing?
I’m fortunate that I can write and research fulltime. In earlier years, I wrote whenever I had a free minute, many weekends and evenings, during trips and lunch breaks.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
If I could visit as a time-traveler without any risk to my person, I’d visit as far back as the dinosaur age, the Stone Age, the Middle Ages and more recent history. I’d visit Native Americans when they were still free. I’d go to France during the revolution, to Italy during the time of Da Vinci. I’d probably limit visits to warzones because they’re all horrific and I’d soon be so overwhelmed that I’d get sick. There are infinite places to see in our past. Each region/country has its own distinct history and they’re all fascinating to me.
What is your next project?
I recently finished ‘Broken Journey,’ a story set during the American Civil War. It is about a boy’s choice to protect his best friend, a slave, from a brutal attack which forces both on separate journeys: one escapes into war, the other is sold into slavery. Told from alternating viewpoints, one black and one white, the story examines the power of hope and friendship, and the endurance of the human spirit to find a way home.
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