Liesel’s War
Hamburg, 1945. As Allied tanks roll past her front door, Liesel Heinemann (23) and her two younger brothers (14 and 9) face an awful quandary. Remain in all-but-defeated Germany with the real possibility of the boys being press-ganged to the Russian front, or walk to England, where their English mother is reportedly living. Crazy idea? Certainly, but it could be the premise for a thrilling tale of hardship, danger and love, as she has also decided to bring along a young, amnesiac British soldier she’s rescued.
Sadly, thrilling it isn’t. Rather, as it unfolds, it’s far-fetched enough to become borderline preposterous, viz., they manage to walk the 500 miles from Hamburg to Boulogne and cross three national borders with not one single military encounter or check point. Really? Belgian locals throw some bricks at them, but luckily sympathetic police direct them to contacts on the French coast, where they blag a trawler ride to England in return for working as fishing crew. Again, really? Arriving in Cornwall, do they immediately register as refugees with the police (as was mandatory under the ‘Aliens Order Registration’), or seek Red Cross help, or somehow mitigate the soldier’s AWOL risk? No, they take a cleansing dip in the sea and find work on a local country estate, thoughts of finding mama seemingly postponed within blurry timelines. Eventually they leave and the mission continues.
For me this was an interesting concept lacking some realism. However, if you prefer sanitised, unfussy, happy-ever-after stories in which kindness is paramount, you’ll enjoy this.
