World War Ii Women

September 1939: The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly.

Paris, 1935. A dark shadow falls over Europe as Adolf Hitler's regime gains momentum, leaving the city of Paris on the brink of occupation. Young Madeleine Levy - granddaughter of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish World War I hero - steps bravely into a new wave of resistance and becomes the guardian of lost children.

1941. The Blitz rages over London. And even in Cornwall, the war is being fought. When Violet loses her sister in the Blitz, she must take her nieces to safety in Cornwall. On the coast, she meets carefree chorus girl Eva, who is also running from the dangers of London. But Porthcurno hides a secret military base, and soon Violet and Eva realise there’s a battle to fight in Cornwall, too. Together with local Hazel, who works on the base, they must come together to help the war effort. But will their friendship be enough to keep them safe?

Best-selling author Jennet Conant brings us a stunning account of Julia and Paul Child's experiences as members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Far East during World War II. She also details the tumultuous years when they were caught up in the McCarthy Red spy hunt in the 1950s and behaved with bravery and honor. It is a fascinating portrait of a group of idealistic men and women who were recruited by the citizen spy service, slapped into uniform, and dispatched to wage political warfare.

Ukraine, 1923. On a small farm, two boys are born within days of each other, both Ukrainian, one Jewish. Mykhail and Asher grow up inseparable, together finding friendship, adventure and escape from the harshness of Russian rule. But after Asher’s family flees to Warsaw, their worlds are torn to shreds by the Second World War. The war brings cruelty to both boys. Although Asher finds love in Warsaw, the city is far from the haven his family sought; meanwhile Mykhail becomes a victim of the bitter struggle for Ukraine. But worse follows, in the shape of the Treblinka death camp.

June 6, 1944. Allied forces hit the beaches of Nazi-occupied France. Among the countless lives shattered are those of five spirited women with starkly different lives. As the war reaches its tipping point, each of the women fight for the survival of themselves, their countries, and their way of life during one of the most pivotal days in history. Now, during the most perilous hours of their lives, all five women must summon courage they never knew they had as they confront the dangers of war alongside treacherous family secrets, heartbreak, and the ability to trust themselves.

How did a young lady from a wealthy family in Maryland end up as the Gestapo’s most wanted spy? This YA biography of Virginia Hall, World War II’s most successful female spy, will inspire reluctant listeners and budding history buffs alike.

The Second World War is dominated by heroic tales of men defending their country against a formidable enemy, but what about the women who also played their parts in fighting for freedom? Eileen Younghusband was just 18 when she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She quickly demonstrated her keen intellect and mathematical skills, playing a crucial role in Fighter Command's underground Filter Room.

It is 1939, and working-class Evie Bishop has received a scholarship to study mathematics at Oxford when tragedy turns her life upside down. Evie must seek a new future for herself and, inspired to contribute to the war effort, joins the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Ops Room plotter. Posted to a fighter station on the Sussex Coast, Evie befriends two other WAAFs. But the German bombers seem to know more than they should about the base’s operations, and soon Evie, May and Jess are caught up in a world more dangerous than they ever imagined.

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant, Sam, to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie’s own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie's wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, 93-year-old Amelie O'Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor - Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer's confession in a Parisian church...

Berlin, 1938. Samuel Weiss and Max von Hofmannsthal were best friends until the cruel antisemitism of Nazi Germany seeped into Berlin and tore their friendship apart. As Max rises in the ranks of the Nazi SS, Sam and his Jewish family find themselves simply struggling to survive.

A train carrying exiled German prisoners from a labor camp arrives in southern France. Within moments, word spreads that Nazi capture is imminent, and the men flee for the woods, desperate to disappear across the Spanish border. One stays behind, determined to ride the train until he reaches home, to find a woman he refers to simply as “her.”

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange - cut short by the soldier's evident interest in Betty - but Liz can't forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Mollie left school at age fourteen and became a scullery maid for a wealthy gentleman with a mansion house in London's Knightsbridge and a Tudor manor in Norfolk. Even though her days were long and grueling and included such endless tasks as polishing doorknobs, scrubbing steps, and helping with all of the food prep in the kitchen, Mollie enjoyed her freedom and had a rich life.

Raised in a lush suburb of 1920s Paris, Noor Inayat Khan was an introspective musician and writer, dedicated to her family and to her father’s spiritual values of harmony, beauty, and tolerance. She did not seem destined for wartime heroism. Yet, faced with the evils of Nazi violence and the German occupation of France, Noor joined the British Special Operations Executive and trained in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. For crucial months of the war, Noor was the only wireless operator in France sending critical information to London.

In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were drafted into a hurriedly assembled band that would play marching music to other inmates, forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day.

The phony war has dragged out past Christmas into a dark and dreary New Year, 1940. In the blackout, someone murdered BBC engineer Frank Kennedy, making him more popular dead than alive. A blackmailer and bully, he sold out his friends, assaulted his Broadcasting House colleagues, and sabotaged his employer. Kennedy was also a government informant against the IRA. Despite arrests of members, the IRA is still planning more attacks against British civilians. Attacks Frank Kennedy might have been involved in.

On November 8, 1943, U.S. Army nurse Agnes Jensen stepped out of a cold rain in Catania, Sicily, into a C-53 transport plane. But she and twelve other nurses never arrived in Bari, Italy, where they were to transport wounded soldiers to hospitals farther from the front lines. A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash landing in a remote part of Albania, leaving the nurses, their team of medics, and the flight crew stranded in Nazi-occupied territory.

When little Ruthie and her mother are taken to Belzec Extermination Camp in the midst of World War II, Ruthie's mother knows that her daughter's life is in grave danger. Desperate, she will do anything to save her from the terrible fate that awaits her, even at the cost of her own life. But she will have to act fast if she wants to give her daughter a chance of survival. Years later, Ruthie's daughter, Noga, delves into the untold mysteries of her mother's past, on a quest to heal their fragmented relationship.