Das verschwiegene Land

In the organizer's words:

Finally again: Matinée at the Hamburg Kammerspiele!

Literature concert

The secretive country

- Victim or collaborator? -
An unknown Franco-German story, 1942-1985

Novel by Renate Ahrens

From 1940, French women were lured to Germany with insidious promises.
lured to Germany with insidious promises.

They met while dancing the tango in Hamburg in 1985: Andrea, 30 years old, and the Frenchman Marcel. He is the love of her life, but she can't commit to the relationship the way he wants her to.

Andrea suspected that her mother would reject Marcel: Since the break with their French homeland, the country has been kept quiet in their home. She decides to visit her mother's family in France in order to understand what happened back then. Out of poverty, her mother accepted a tempting offer from the German occupiers and the Vichy regime - she went to Berlin to work in the German arms industry. Was she a collaborator? Could she not be forgiven in France for loving a German who became Andrea's father? - 80,000 French women accepted the Nazis' offer of a contract. The novel takes up an unknown Franco-German story.

Renate Ahrens - the author tells the story
Sonja Szylowicki - reads
Eva Zöllner - plays the accordion