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Paperback Faraway Home Book

ISBN: B0089OE7AI

ISBN13: 9780862786434

Faraway Home

Karl and Rosa's family watch in horror as Hitler's troops parade down the streets of their home city -- Vienna. It has become very dangerous to be a Jew in Austria, and after their uncle is sent to Dachau, Karl and Rosa's parents decide to send the children out of the country on a Kindertransport, one of the many ships carrying refugee children away from Nazi danger.

Isolated and homesick, Karl ends up in Millisle, a run-down farm in Ards in Northern Ireland, which has become a Jewish refugee centre, while Rosa is fostered by a local family.

Hard work on the farm keeps Karl occupied, although he still waits desperately for any news from home. Then he makes friends with locals Peewee and Wee Billy, and also with the girls from neutral Dublin who come to help on the farm, especially Judy. But Northern Ireland is in the war too, with rationing and air-raid warnings, and, in April 1941 the bombs of the Belfast Blitz bring the reality of war right to their doorstep.

And for Karl and Rosa and the other refugees there is the constant fear that they may never see their parents again.

Based on a true story -- there was a refugee farm at Millisle and among its occupants was a young boy called Karl.

Recommended

Format: Paperback

Condition: New

$15.68
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Customer Reviews

1 rating

Perception and Reality

Marilyn Taylor's FARAWAY HOME sensitively unfolds a touching story of the anguish suffered by Jewish refugee children sent by their parents from all over Europe to a farm in County Down, Northern Ireland during the Second World War. This is a story of pain and separation, of camaraderie and, finally, of hope. The beginnings of the Holocaust in Vienna are vividly portrayed through young Karl's eyes; the development of his character carries the reader from the oppression of Vienna to the friendly hardship of refugee life on the Ards peninsula. When Karl meets a spirited but rather spoilt volunteer from Dublin he is eventually persuaded to release some of his pain and anger. In the end, Judy teaches him to hope for the future. The pathos, suffering and bravery are overwhelming. But for me, it is Taylor's skill in building three-dimensional characters which makes this book so outstanding. None of the central characters are easily categorised. We are allowed inside the heads of Karl and Judy, thus getting to know their intimate thoughts; we hear how each regards the other and everyone else around them. Sometines their views are at odds and sometimes they coincide. The conflict between perception and reality in the book accurately mirrors real life. This is a story which stays with the reader, long after the final page has been turned.
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