A powerful and deeply moving tale of survival amidst the horrors of war-torn Europe.
Fifteen-year-old Hanka Kaudersova has ginger hair and clear, green eyes. When her family is deported to Auschwitz, Hanka is faced with a simple alternative: follow her family to the gas chamber, or work in an SS brothel behind the eastern front. She chooses to live, her Aryan looks allowing her to disguise the fact that she is Jewish. As the defeated German army draws ever closer, Hanka fights cold, hunger, fear and shame - sustained by her hatred for the men she entertains, and her fierce, burning desire for life.
'Lovely Green Eyes' explores the compromises an individual may make in order to survive, the way a person can retain her identity even in the face of terrible trauma, and the value of human life itself. This is a remarkable novel that soars beyond nightmare, to leave the reader with a transcendent sense of hope.
