Oftentimes, the powerful want us to believe we don’t stand a chance against them.
But we do.
In my upcoming book, Padlocked, Agata was born in eastern Germany to a Jewish father and a Christian mother. When her mother dies in childbirth when she is only six years old, she finds herself in the role of mother and big sister to Elsa. Banished from their village due to their father’s religion, they find refuge in Warsaw. But when the Nazis invade Poland and lay siege to Warsaw a dozen years later, Agata is separated from Elsa and her father, Ira.
She vowed to reunite them, but she learns that Ira and Elsa have been deported from Warsaw to camps in southern Poland, so she sets out on foot to find them. She learns they were separated outside Warsaw, and she makes the difficult choice to find only one of them—her sister, Elsa.
Agata’s journey will transform her from a teenager to a determined young woman driven by love of family. It will take her across Poland under Nazi occupation, where any day could be abruptly interrupted with a demand for her papers and a snap decision to deport her to a concentration camp.
Her story was inspired by true stories of people who resisted Nazi occupation and who believed that love would ultimately be victorious over hatred and division. In stepping into the hellish existence of camp under the guise of a Nazi guard, she will seek to save Elsa, and in the process, many others.
Agata’s story is one of several interwoven during the years of Poland’s Nazi occupation. Each is an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Each must make decisions that change their lives and those of others, and ultimately demonstrate the true character of their souls.