Chapter 6
713 Words
Dear Reader,
Thanks so much for reading TROUBLE BREWING. When I started the War Girl series, I never planned for Richard to get his own book. Since he was away at the front, I thought he’d simply stay there.
But my characters like to surprise me and usually don’t do the things I expect them to. So Richard stubbornly weaseled his way into my head, demanding his own book. It was a tough book to write, because it was the first time I had a soldier as my main character and that was new territory for me.
Talking about soldiers: Johann Hauser, Richard’s squad leader in Lodz, started out as a minor character, but he begged me to appear in another book. His wish was granted and you’ll meet him again in the next book in the War Girl series, Fatal Encounter.
But there’s even more exciting things happening with Johann. He’ll make a cameo appearance as young man before the war in Shanghai Story, a WWII drama written by my friend Alexa Kang. I, for one, cannot wait until I can get my hands on her book.
After my visit to Warsaw, Poland in June 2017 I wanted to set this story in Warsaw, but much to my dismay found out, that the Warsaw Ghetto had been liquidated already in Spring 1943, long before Richard even arrived in Poland.
Thankfully, my research unearthed that there was one single Ghetto left in Poland to exist until June 1944, which was in Lodz, so I moved the story there. The correct spelling of the city is Łódź, but for ease of reading I use the English form Lodz.
Even today, the head of the Council of Elders, Chaim Rudowski, is one of the most controversial figures of occupied Poland. He transformed the Ghetto into a productivity machine manufacturing war supplies for the Wehrmacht, because he believed that being useful to the Germans would ensure the survival of the Ghetto occupants. Whether he really believed this or seized the opportunity for his own wealth and power, is not clear.
Rudowski will always be remembered for his speech “Give me your children”. In the story, the midwife Magda recalls his speech. It must have been beyond moving for anyone present there, especially the parents who were asked to send their children into death.
Attached to the Ghetto was the Kinder KZ, and while officially the minimum age was eight years, the youngest prisoner of the camp was a boy of two years and three months. Petty offences like stealing food, loitering in the streets, or even the fact that the children were orphans easily became reasons to send them to the camp.
By the way, Lodz is also the place, where the parents of my father-in-law lived before the war. At that time the city had a huge population of Germans and many people in the area were bilingual.
The village of Baluty is just a random village I chose for the story, but massacres like the one I described have happened across Poland and Russia.
Oskar Dirlewanger was a real person and from my research, he was even more reproachable in reality than I depicted him in the book. The incident where Richard was supposed to shoot the unarmed and wounded Pole actually happened during the Warsaw Uprising, as testified by the eighteen year old soldier Matthias Schenk.
Of course I couldn’t have written this book without the help of so many special people. Many thanks go to Anja Matijczak and her mother who checked the Polish words and dishes for correctness.
And as always I want to thank my fantastic cover designer Daniela Colleo from stunningbookcovers.com.
But my acknowledgements wouldn’t be complete, without mentioning you, my reader! Thank you for all the support, your wonderful emails, the encouragement, and the kind words. I love hearing from you!
If you’re seeking a group of wonderful people who have an interest in WWII fiction, you are more than welcome to join our f*******: group.
https://w**************m/groups/962085267205417
Again, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read my book and if you liked it (or even if you didn’t) I would appreciate a sincere review.
Marion Kummerow
- Writer
