Belonging

Shortly after the end of WWII, Switzerland asked its citizens to take in children from Europe's war-torn countries, helping to restore them to health and stability. For Andrea, a six year old German girl, the mountain village of Malix becomes her home. Thriving in this Heidi-like setting, nevertheless her longed-for playmates are slow to offer acceptance. She is a child of the enemy, a fact they are not likely to forget. Years later Andrea copes in her determined and unique way with...
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Shortly after the end of WWII, Switzerland asked its citizens to take in children from Europe's war-torn countries, helping to restore them to health and stability. For Andrea, a six year old German girl, the mountain village of Malix becomes her home. Thriving in this Heidi-like setting, nevertheless her longed-for playmates are slow to offer acceptance. She is a child of the enemy, a fact they are not likely to forget. Years later Andrea copes in her determined and unique way with new challenges of exclusion, as the only Lutheran student in a Catholic boarding school. And when she is sent to school in England, aware of the damage that Germany inflicted on Great Britain, she is apprehensive about living there. Instead of rejection she encounters acceptance, friendship, and love that will alter her life.