A Threat of Home

A family saga portraying the lives of two young Germans whose early lives play out against the looming rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. A story of the migrant experience, flight from the familiar to the unfamiliar and the need for resilience in the face of rejection. Those left behind face a situation ever more difficult and horrific.

Katie is born in 1919 to loving parents who want to protect her and her lively brothers from the tumult Germany finds itself in. The hope that was felt in the early years of the republic soon gives way to turmoil and the family’s struggle with conscience and disillusionment. A very ill-judged love affair leads her to come to England in 1939, encouraged by her parents who fear that her headstrong nature will get her into trouble.

Bill is part of a family of German migrants living in Camden. Their lives are disrupted by the First World War. Bill, a small baby, is taken with his four siblings back to the Black Forest by his mother, Rosina now penniless. His father, Albert is interned on the Isle of Man and returns to his family in 1919 a changed and embittered man. Poverty, the threat of war, and a nostalgia for London leads Bill back there to seek his fortune.

Bill and Katie meet after the war. For Katie the decision to make London her home is heartbreakingly difficult. For Bill it is clear cut. But they are both beleaguered, cut adrift in a suspicious climate. Together they see hope and a future.