Showing results for "We" in 20th Century

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years, a bond formed by a lifetime of memories. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, REM concerts, unexpected Scottish wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.' When Edi is diagnosed with the final stages of terminal ovarian cancer, she makes the painstaking decision to leave behind her husband and son to move to a hospice down the road from Ash.

Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighbouring village, 17-year-old Wang Di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery. After 60 years of silence, what she saw and experienced there still haunts her present.

Brzeziny, Poland, 1939. Zofia's comfortable lifestyle overturns when her husband, Jabez, who monitors Nazi activity, has gone missing. Rather than fleeing the country with her young son, as she had promised Jabez who is fearing retaliation, she decides to stay. She cannot possibly leave her friend, Aanya. Since their childhood they have amazed fellow Brzeziners that it does not matter that Aanya is Jewish and deaf, and that Zofia is Catholic and hearing. Now, more than ever with war looming, Zofia will do whatever is necessary to protect her family and Aanya.

When Emily Emerson is made redundant from her reporting job, she finds herself completely adrift. Then, one day, she receives a beautiful painting of her grandmother standing at the edge of a sugarcane field under a violet sky, and a handwritten note saying, 'He never stopped loving her' . . . Emily begins to dig and soon uncovers a trail leading her to the POW internment camps of 1940s Florida, where German prisoners worked for American farmers - and sometimes fell in love with American women. But how does this all connect to the painting?

When the love of Tasha’s life, Luca, joins the air force to fight against the evil Nazi invaders, she knows she has to follow her heart—and him—into battle. Headstrong, impulsive and a daredevil, she’s the perfect recruit. Tasha’s sensible older sister, Nadia, plans only to stop Tasha’s madness and bring her home. But a chance encounter puts her in a plane, soaring above the clouds, and she also finds her calling.

Japanese-occupied Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara's children are in terrible danger. Her eldest child Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Jasmin, the youngest, lives confined in a basement for her own safety. And her son, Abel, has disappeared without a trace. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her 12-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi, but it’s his daughter, Ettie, who offers hope of salvation when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she and Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked.

English girl Sheila Matthews accepts an invitation to holiday in Poland, the country where her father died in mysterious circumstances. When German bombers begin pounding Warsaw, she decides against returning home and is recruited by the Polish underground. Playing a dangerous game as a double agent, Sheila must use all her skill to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo. But soon the Germans begin to suspect her and she flees to the forest, to be reunited with the enigmatic Captain Adam Wisniewski, now a wanted partisan.

Artist Marguerite Segal is recruited by British Intelligence into befriending Etienne Valade, a local priest. Her mission is to persuade him to pass on information from the high-ranking German officers who attend his church: evidence of their war crimes. Connected by a passion for art, Marguerite and Etienne soon fall in love, but their association increasingly puts her at danger of violent reprisals. With his church frequented by Nazis, Etienne is a suspected collaborator, and distrust is high.

In this sweeping story based on the true experiences of nurses dubbed "the Angels of Bataan," three women shift in and out of each other's lives through the darkest days of the war, buoyed by their unwavering friendship and distant dreams of liberation.

France, 1942: When Kasia is told she will be smuggled out of Poland to work as a radio operator with a French Resistance group, she plans to make the dangerous journey across the border alone. But when she meets a mute girl who she names Elodie, in a ghetto in Warsaw on the eve of her departure, she reminds Kasia so strongly of someone she loved–with one brown eye, and one green–that she knows she can’t leave her behind, no matter the risk....

In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality - and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.

As war is declared once more, a shadow falls over Britain. The staff at the luxurious Buckingham hotel must do all that they can to keep their important guests happy, but behind the scenes, they are scared. Away from the glitz and the glamour of the ballroom, they must face this new reality. Newlywed Nancy knows that her brave husband, debonair dancer Raymond de Guise, will want to fight for his country and enlist. She loves and supports him but is heartbroken at the thought of them being apart and the dangers he will face.

December, 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone. Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband, Selwyn, had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all.

On October 28, 1940, Mussolini provides Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas with an ultimatum - either allow Axis forces to occupy their country or face war - and Greece’s response is swift: “Oxi!” they say. “No!” In a small village nestled against the radiant waters of the Aegean Sea, Alexei, the son of a local fisherman, and his best friend Costa - who were both born on the same night eighteen years earlier and have been like brothers ever since - leave their homes, like all the other young men in their village and throughout Greece, to bravely fight for their country.

As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.

Liverpool 1942. Seventeen-year-old Frankie Franconi falls in love with charismatic British officer Nick Harper as quickly and certainly as the bomb that falls on their shelter. He is impressed by her good looks and intelligence, and the fact that, like him, she speaks fluent Italian. When she insists on staying to help rescue others who have been trapped he realises that she has courage, too. He gives her a business card with a Baker Street address, and suggests she put her skills to good use.

1943: When a safe house in Nazi-occupied the Netherlands becomes too dangerous for Edith, she flees. Injured, she meets Erich who promises to take her to his family's home for medical attention. En route she awakens to discover that they've entered Nazi Germany—the last place she wants to be as a Jew. In need of concealing her faith, and with limited choices, Edith becomes the private teacher to Erich's young brothers. Her roommate is a Roma with a tragic past and also hides from the Nazis in plain sight.

London, 1944: As bombs start raining from the sky, two women rush out of a restaurant, leaving their possessions behind. Their chance meeting amid the chaos and destruction will have long-lasting consequences. Both beset by desperate problems, they take advantage of the wartime chaos to escape their humdrum lives and start again.

A young woman's future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope. Jean-Luc thought he had left it all behind. The scar on his face a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi Occupation. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door. On a darkened platform, two destinies become entangled. Their choice will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.