Tag Archive | Helen Parusel

The Austrian Bride by Helen Parusel

Jan15

Powerful

The Austrian Bride by Helen Parusel is a marvellous historical novel that will educate you as you read. The main characters are fictitious but the events are true.

The novel is set in Linz, Austria in 1938 and up to the outbreak of World War II. It was a time of great change. People voted for the Anschluss with Germany but were ignorant as to what that really meant. They believed it would be jobs, peace and prosperity. The reality was a reign of terror. Many felt guilty about voting for unification with Nazi Germany.

A character also feels guilt from an event thirty years earlier. How different life would be for the whole world if she had just made different choices.

Persecution of the Jewish people began. We hear of Kristallnacht and see the cruelty and man’s inhumanity to man. “To defy the Nazis was to be prepared to die.” – not many were that brave, however when one character speaks up, others join their voice.

As Edmund Burke famously said “for evil to flourish, it just needs good men to do nothing.” Far too many blind eyes were turned. However, there were those souls who were brave, and stood up to help those in need.

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A Mother’s War by Helen Parusel

May17

A Fabulous Debut

A Mother’s War by Helen Parusel is a marvellous historical debut that enthralled me.

The story educates as you read. It is set in Nazi occupied Norway during World War II and concerns the Lebensborn program. This was designed to re-populate Germany with Aryan looking babies – some were born in Lebensborn homes, others were kidnapped from their parents and sent to Germany to be adopted. It was an open secret and not talked about much. After the war, some mothers and their children were shunned.

Mothers entered the program for a variety of reasons – for some it was the kudos, others had genuinely fallen in love.

We see that not all Germans were Nazis. Some were abhorrent at the persecution and the horrors that they witnessed. They did what they could to help others, from inside the Nazi war machine.

There was the Norwegian resistance. We see the courage needed to stand up and make a difference.

Love happens where it will. We witness the dilemma a character faces when she meets kindness in a young German soldier.

Children are a gift from God, whatever the circumstances of their birth.

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