Heart in the Clouds
by
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Ingrid's father encouraged her to compromise with life. “You never know who you will fall in love with. You can always hope that you’ll find the one of your dreams. Be forewarned though, you have to accept the possibility that he may not be as you imagined. Love is unexpected, love is blind.”
She smiled hearing his words. She recalled a few times when her eyes would meet those of a young man in school or in the ballet and there seemed to be a magical connection. It invariably passed in a day or so. Sometimes it vanished in the blink of an eye. “Don’t you worry, father. I know I’ll find the right man in time. Someday, somewhere.”
“Well, as long as your children come into this world while I’m alive, I’ll be happy.”
He spoke in jest but she sensed a kernel of worry. Her father was getting gray and each month seemed to bring another wrinkle on his brow.
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About the Book
Two souls, searching for humanity and hope amid the unspeakable horrors of war and the devastating authority of hatred, find themselves cast together in the Sachsenhausen work camp during the Second World War and the murderous Holocaust that came swiftly with it. One is in the Nazi labor camp by force, the other by one choice or another.
Ingrid Hoffman, a gifted ballerina from Hamburg, and Axel Engel, a promising man fresh from school in Munich, experience an immediate and spontaneous pull to one another. Their budding love, as forbidden as it is blessed, becomes the precious center of their lives. But as essential as it is to their emotional survival in the camps, its very presence puts them at mortal risk amid the camp’s vast and pitiless machinery of death.
Discovery will surely mean death for them both.
Together, Ingrid and Axel find ways to help each other get through the day and stand up against the atrocities of Sachsenhausen as two people can. The strength they draw from their relationship is the only way they can protect any measure of humanity the Third Reich seeks to destroy. Paradoxically, the greatest danger to the star-crossed couple comes when Russian troops liberate their lives of abhorrence in the spring of 1945. The price of their freedom is rough justice. Can the lovers survive this one final challenge to their happiness?
About the Author
Danny Rittman’s father, a survivor of Dachau and Auschwitz, taught him to seek the good in people—all people. A chip designer with broad interests, including spirituality and international travel, he has found human goodness many times, often in the most unexpected places. He lives in California.