When They Made Us
Leave
by Annette
Oppenlander
Published: November
15, 2019
Genre: Military,
Historical Fiction, War
Blurb:
When They Made Us Leave tells the touching love story of
Hilda and Peter, whose budding relationship ends abruptly when they are forced
to attend separate evacuation camps during WWII. Each confronted with terror
and cruelty as well as unexpected kindness, they must rise above to survive the
war and find each other once more.
Solingen, 1943: As bombs carpet Germany and fourteen-year
old Hilda is falling in love with her childhood friend and next-door neighbor,
Peter, he excitedly takes off to an evacuation camp in Pomerania, six hundred
miles from home. Though Peter soon finds that his expectations are far from
reality, he is ordered to write happy letters home, even when things take a
turn for the worse and a new Hitler youth leader attempts to convert camp into
a military battalion.
Meanwhile, Hilda must unwillingly accompany her classmates
to a cloister in Bavaria run by a draconian Abbess. There Hilda struggles to
overcome her homesickness and yearning for Peter while helping a classmate hide
her bedwetting accidents.
As Germany is buried under rubble and supplies shorten, Peter
lands at an inn near Gdansk. By now, all he wants is to go home. But his new
teacher, a staunch national socialist, deems their place safe despite the
refugees from the east whispering of German defeat by an advancing Russian
Army.
When the cloister is converted into a German field hospital,
enemy planes destroy Hilda’s homebound train and kill her teacher. Weeks later,
tired and hungry, she arrives home to find her mother safe. But Peter has not
returned, nor is there any news of him. Refusing to believe the worst, she must
survive in a barely recognizable world.
Set against the backdrop of the wide-sweeping and
much-loathed children’s evacuation program of Hitler’s Germany, award-winning
‘Surviving the Fatherland’ author Annette Oppenlander offers another
heart-wrenching contribution to the history of the children’s war.
My Review:
When They Made Us Leave tells the story of German children
during the war of how Hitler had children from three months to fifteen years
old taken from their homes. Children eleven to fifteen put in a program they
called a happy program and sent to camps. When They Made Us Leave is the story
of two children a girl and boy, Hilda and Peter. When They Made Us Leave is
told from both Hilda and Peter’s points of view as they were both sent to
different camps, Hilda was sent to a camp for girls and Peter to a camp for
boys.
Parents were told that the program was voluntary and it was
going to be like a vacation for the children. Parents were told that the children
would be living on beaches and they would have the best food. The children
would be with their teachers who would continue their educations and playing
sports to strengthen their bodies. This was all done to separate the children
from their parents and their influences so they could have more control over
them and to train them the way Hitler wanted.
When They Made Us Leave is a book that will grab you by the
heart from the minute you open it up and it will stay with you long after you
have read the last page. The horror of the children being taken from their
homes, their parents, the people they loved was heart wrenching not to mention
what they went through while away and then as they made their way back home.
I can only imagine how the children felt being away from
their homes a place where they felt safety and warmth and no fear from loving
parents, their fears of an unknown place and the people as well and their fears
and horrors of the war and of the things they had to do just to survive.
When They Made Us Leave will be with me for a long time to
come even now it is so hard to get it off my mind. I still have so many unanswered
questions even though Hilda and Peter’s story came to a close. What about Peter’s
brother Walter, what is his story? What about the babies three months to six
years? What about the six to ten year olds? What is there story?
I would highly recommend When They Made Us Leave to all fans
of military, war or historical fiction.
Author Bio:
Annette
Oppenlander writes historical fiction for young adults and anyone who loves
stories set in the past. When she isn’t in front of her computer, she loves
indulging her dog, Mocha, and traveling around the U.S. and Europe to discover
amazing histories.
"Nearly every place holds some kind of secret, something that makes history come alive. When we scrutinize people and places closely, history is no longer a number, it turns into a story."
"Nearly every place holds some kind of secret, something that makes history come alive. When we scrutinize people and places closely, history is no longer a number, it turns into a story."
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