Nov 9, 2017
November 9 – That date has a huge significance in Germany and to the world.
NOVEMBER 9, 1938
November 9, 1938 was when Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) happened which escalated and led to the Jewish holocaust but it was also the date that changed Eva’s life (in the novel “In the Blood of the Greeks“).
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, or Reichskristallnacht was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces …read more
In my first novel, Eva’s world was shattered when her mother was murdered, mistaken for a Jewess, and her father found out Eva was a lesbian- the two events combined to send Eva’s world coming crashing down on her in the most horrific way.
NOVEMBER 9, 1989
November 9, 1989. That day also saw a huge significance in Germany – it’s the historic day that the despised Berlin Wall was breeched by 20,000 people without violence, without losing their lives, without a single shot fired in anger. It was the day that a East German officer made a decision that brought the end of a divided city.
This is from today’s Sydney Morning Herald:
Berlin: The East German lieutenant colonel who gave the fateful order to throw open the Berlin Wall 25 years ago said he wept in silence a few moments later as hordes of euphoric East Germans swept past him into West Berlin to get their first taste of freedom. Harald Jaeger said he spent hours before his history-changing decision trying in vain to get guidance from superiors on what to do about the 20,000 protesters at his border crossing who were clamouring to get out. When he had had enough of being laughed at, ridiculed and told by commanders to sort it out for himself, Jaeger ordered the 46 armed guards under his command to throw open the barrier.
He then stepped back and cried – tears of relief that the standoff had ended without violence, tears of frustration that his superiors had left him in the lurch and tears of despair from a man who had so long believed in the communist ideal.
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He had joined the border guard unit in 1961. Over 28 years, he saw the barrier grow from an infancy of coiled barbed wire to a brick wall and then to maturity as a towering 160-kilometre white concrete screen that encircled West Berlin, cutting across streets, between families and through graveyards.
“My world was collapsing and I felt like I was left alone by my party and my military commanders,” said Jaeger, now 71, remembering the night. “I was on the one hand hugely disappointed but also relieved that it ended peacefully. There could have been a different outcome.”
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Jul 2, 2016
Sallie’s Book Reviews blog interviews authors about their books. Sallie suggested I do an interview with one of the characters of the Intertwined Souls Series.
Interesting.
So I chose Zoe (who as we all know is not short of a word).
Interview with Zoe Lambros by Mary D. Brooks, author of In the Blood of the Greeks has now been posted on Sallie’s site.
What questions are there for Zoe to answer?
1. Tell us a little about yourself and your background
2. Do you have a nickname?
3. How did it feel when you first realized that you had tender feelings for someone that you hated so passionately? I don’t imagine that it would have sat comfortably with you, knowing that anything you feel, you feel strongly
4. Did you wrestle with this new feeling that was incompatible with your existing attitude towards Eva and was it a conscious choice to allow that feeling to gradually develop?
5. Was there a definite point that you can identify where you yielded to love and decided to let any remaining hatred towards Eva be washed away by that love?
6. Let’s talk about Eva a bit more – When you think of Eva, what comes into your mind?
7. It’s obvious they didn’t succeed since you’re with Eva now, right?
8. What makes you laugh out loud?
9. You have a motorcycle but you no longer ride, are you ever going to ride a motorcycle again?
10. When you think of home, what’s your favorite memory?
11. What is the best Christmas present you have given to Eva?
12. What’s next for Zoe Lambros?
Read the answers here
Mar 20, 2016
I’m very pleased to announce that my newest non-fiction book “In The Blood of the Greeks: The Illustrated Companion” is now available! 104 Pages of illustrations, images, first hand accounts of events portrayed in the book and much more!
Purchase from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0994476523
Purchase from Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/6120291
The book will also be available in other bookstores in the coming week. A ebook version of the book will also be available shortly although you won’t be able to use the coloring book section.
This book combined my love for history, research and my characters – it was a joy to work on and I had the unbelievable help of Lucia Nobrega who did her amazing Eva and Zoe Illustrations plus the Australian War Memorial and the New Zealand War Memorial via the The Alexander Turnball Library in Wellington, NZ. The Jewish Museum of Greece just went out of their way to help with giving me access to their material and photo archive. A researcher’s dream come true.
It’s 1942 in German Occupied Greece during World War II, and two women, one Greek, the other German must work together to help Jews escape. They have to put aside their mutual antipathy to accomplish their clandestine operation. They know that one wrong move will put an end to their lives.
In The Blood of the Greeks The Illustrated Companion is about the events written in the award-winning novel “In The Blood Of The Greeks”. Real life heroes of the Resistance, life in war-torn Greece and the Jewish fight for survival are portrayed through illustrations, images and real accounts. Part coloring book, part history book featuring Brazilian artist Lucia Nobrega’s illustrations of Eva Muller and Zoe Lambros and other characters from the novel.
Feb 17, 2016
There is an amazing interview with Titika Panagiotidou who was a member of the Greek Resistance during World War 2. It’s in Greek but you can do a Google translate and it translates it pretty well.
Jan 30, 2016
Here is a real life Zoe Lambros – Sara Yeshua who served in the Greek Resistance.
Many thanks to The Jewish Museum of Greece for the following biography and images
Born in the “Ovriaki” (Jewish quarter) of Chalkida in 1927, Sara (or Sarika) Yeshua belongs to the emblematic figures of the resistance. When the war broke out, she was a student in the Public Commercial School in Chalkida. After the untimely death of her father in the same year she was born, she was brought up by her mother, Zafira, and her older sister Yaffa on Kotsou St, the main street of the Jewish quarter. Her mother was the sister of war hero Col. Mardochaios Frizis, who played a key role in the formation of her patriotic consciousness. Before she turned 15, Sara assisted the wounded at city’s military hospital as a volunteer nurse.
The next step was the resistance. The energeticJewish girl secured fake identities for her mother and herself. From the beginning of the German occupation (October 1943), Sara got involved with EAM, took her mother and left Chalkida for Steni where her sister lived with her husband.
To guard against German incursions against the terrified Jews who had fled to the mountains, the resistance dispersed the Jewsin various villages (Paliouras, Theologos, Stropones, Vasiliko) and later they organised an escape network by boat to Turkey from Tsakei beach. The young Sara became a teacher in the isolated village of Kourkouloi and worked actively in EPON. After the horrific murder of her cousin Mendi Moschovitz by the Security Battalions in Stropones (4 March 1944) and the burning of Kourkouloi, she joined the partisan ranks. She established herself immediately as a speaker who passionately preached armed struggle, particularly among young women. Soon he formed an independent female group that fought, gathered intelligence and organised theatre performances in the villages. An American journalist who was in occupied Evia devoted a paragraph to her in an article aboutthe Greek partisans: “She’s a short, stocky girl with dark hair and blue eyes. She runs like a man and can shoot a walnut from a tree at 200 yards. Whether she is calling out marching orders or pounding out a beat with her arm as her Company goes singing down a mountain path, she does it vibrantly and proudly”. At the liberation, she was “kapetanissa” (partisan leader) of the Model Women’s Platoon of the 7th ELAS Regiment and already legendary among the partisans of Evia under the name “Captain Sarika.” She now lives in Tel Aviv.
Dec 14, 2015
Interview with Greek-Australian author, Mary D. Brooks
Hello peeps! Today, I am pleased to welcome a Greek author from Down Under! Mary D. Brooks is one of the latest additions to eNovel Authors at Work, who writes urban fantasy set in Greece during WWII. Check out these stunning covers:
November 9, 1938 was when Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) happened which escalated and led to the Jewish holocaust but it was also the date that changed Eva’s life (in the novel “In the Blood of the Greeks“).
November 9, 1989. That day also saw a huge significance in Germany – it’s the historic day that the despised Berlin Wall was breeched by 20,000 people without violence, without losing their lives, without a single shot fired in anger. It was the day that a East German officer made a decision that brought the end of a divided city.
