The Girls of the Glimmer Factory

The Girls of the Glimmer Factory
Author: Jennifer Coburn
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2025-01-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781728277318

From the author of Cradles of the Reich comes a poignant and inspiring tale of resistance, friendship, and the dangers of propaganda, based on the real story of Theresienstadt, for fans of The Forest of Vanishing Stars and The German Wife. Hannah longs for the days when she used to be free, but now, she is a Jewish prisoner at Theresienstadt, a model ghetto where the Nazis plan to make a propaganda film to convince the world that the Jewish people are living well in the camps. But Hannah will do anything to show the world the truth. Along with other young resistance members, they vow to disrupt the filming and derail the increasingly frequent deportations to death camps in the east. Hilde is a true believer in the Nazi cause, working in the Reich Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda. Though they're losing the war, Hilde hasn't lost faith. She can't stop the Allied bombings, but she can help the party create a documentary that will renew confidence in Hitler's plans for Jewish containment. When the filming of Hitler Gives a City to the Jews faces production problems due to resistance, Hilde finds herself in a position to finally make a name for herself. And when she recognizes Hannah, an old childhood friend, she knows she can use their friendship to get the film back on track.

Cradles of the Reich

Cradles of the Reich
Author: Jennifer Coburn
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2022-10-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1728250765

"Every historical fiction novel should strive to be this compelling, well-researched and just flat-out good." — Associated Press For fans of The Nightingale and The Handmaid's Tale, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a topic rarely explored in fiction: the Lebensborn project, a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. Through thorough research and with deep empathy, this chilling historical novel goes inside one of the Lebensborn Society maternity homes that existed in several countries during World War II, where thousands of "racially fit" babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany. At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women's lives coverage as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she's secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official's child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. Despite their opposing beliefs, all three have everything to lose as they begin to realize they are trapped within Hitler's terrifying scheme to build a Nazi-Aryan nation. A cautionary tale for modern times told in stunning detail, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a little-known Nazi atrocity but also carries an uplifting reminder of the power of women to set aside differences and work together in solidarity in the face of oppression. "Skillfully researched and told with great care and insight, here is a World War II story whose lessons should not—must not—be forgotten." — Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

The Glimmer Palace

The Glimmer Palace
Author: Beatrice Colin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2008-07-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1440637105

A celebration of cabaret in Berlin and the birth of cinema, set against the rise and fall of Germany between World War I and World War II As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. The illegitimate, soon orphaned daughter of a cabaret performer, she lands at a Catholic orphanage where she finds refuge and the first in a string of friendships that will change the direction of her life. When fellow orphan Hanne takes Lilly beyond their stone confines, introducing her to the seedy glamour of Berlin’s notorious nightlife, it begins for Lillly a trajectory of reinvention. From urchin to maid, teenage war bride, tingle-tangle bargirl, model, and script typist, Lilly is eventually transformed into one of Germany’s leading film stars and a partner in a remarkable love story that will span decades and continents—and be inextricable from the history unfolding around it. Gripping, seductive, and masterfully written, The Glimmer Palace is a page-turning story of glitter and splendor, drama and love, friendship and identity. The story of an extraordinary heroine living in an extraordinary time, it is vivid and surprising in its telling, intelligent and ambitious in its scope, sad and beautiful and unforgettable.

The Very Thought of You

The Very Thought of You
Author: Mary Fitzgerald
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2015-07-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1448165431

1944: Three girls join a touring variety group and travel through Europe, entertaining the troops as World War II draws to a close In the wake of D-Day three very different women join a touring variety company, performing to factory girls, hospitals and serving troops. Catherine's husband has been reported missing in action and she needs a job to support her mother and daughter. Della, a Liverpudlian show girl, is ambitious for fame and hides her problems behind a devil-may-care attitude. Frances, titled but impoverished, will do anything to keep the family home safe for her brother, a POW in the Far East. Travelling from show to show, the three women form a strong bond. But when they follow the advancing army through France, their friendship deepens as the company is stalked by lies and betrayal, and it’s clear that nobody will come home the same. Previously published as Imperfect Tense.

From Wonso Pond

From Wonso Pond
Author: Kang Kyong-ae
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2009-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1558616535

“A vibrant account of the travails of Japanese colonialism as experienced by workers and women by the pioneering feminist writer of the Korean left.” —Andre Schmid, author of Korea Between Empires A classic revolutionary novel of the 1930s and the first complete work written by a woman before the Korean War to be published in English, From Wonso Pond transforms the love triangle between three protagonists into a revealing portrait of the living conditions that led to modern Korea, both North and South. “A fatherless young girl now poised to become the victim of [the landlord’s] lecherous fangs and paws,” begins one of the original newspaper teasers describing From Wonso Pond and the fate of its heroine, Sonbi. In a plot rich with Dickensian overtones, the novel paints a vivid picture of life in what is now North Korea through the eyes of Sonbi, her childhood neighbor, Ch’otchae, and a restless law student, Sinch’ol, as they journey separately from a small, impoverished village ruled by the lecherous land baron to the port city of Inch’on. But life is hardly easier there, as Sonbi wears herself out boiling silk threads twelve hours a day while Ch’otchae and Sinch’ol load rice on the docks. All three become involved with underground activists, fighting the oppression of country and city, as well as their Japanese colonial rulers. “An astonishing achievement . . . From a colonized Korea, Kang sets the stage for the tragic birth of two rival nations. John Dos Passos and George Orwell may have had a Korean sister yet.” —Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko

Factory GIRLS

Factory GIRLS
Author: Freddie Thomas
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2014-11-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781320225632

Life Course, Work, and Labour in Global History

Life Course, Work, and Labour in Global History
Author: Josef Ehmer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2023-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 3111147967

This multidisciplinary volume offers unique perspectives, across the globe and throughout the centuries, on the complexity of the nexus between work and the life course. For industrialized regions, from Germany and Western Europe to China and Japan, it questions the widespread notion of an overall growing working life course instability, since the 1970s. For unindustrialized or industrializing regions, from West Africa to state socialist East Central Europe, as well as for transnational and transcontinental labour migrations, it shows the enormous influence of the extended family and wider kin on individual pathways into and out of work. For early modern Europe, India, and China, and up to twentieth-century state socialism and to current welfare states, it stresses and concretizes the crucial impact of age and gender for both societal labour relations and individual work-related decision making. With all chapters based on original research, the volume reflects a close cooperation between historians, anthropologists, and sociologists. Its multidisciplinary approach finds expression in its methodological plurality, reaching from archival research and sophisticated statistical analyses to biographical interviews and participant observation. This mix allows to grasp the interaction between societal change and individual agency.