My Enemy's Cradle
Books / Paperback
Books › Fiction › Historical
ISBN: 0156034336 / Publisher: Harper Perennial, October 2008
Hiding out from the Nazis with her Dutch relatives, Cyrla, a half-Jewish girl, is confronted by a terrifying choice between certain discovery in her cousin's home and--knowing that her cousin Annika is pregnant with the child of a German soldier--taking her place in the Lebensborn, a maternity home for Aryan girls carrying German babies. A first novel. Reprint.
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Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their fathers' custody--or taken away.And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. She must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn--Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla escape before they discover she is not who she claims? Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.
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