THE VISION OF ANTJE BAUMANN

About the Book

It is May, 1940 in Holland. Early on, the Baumann family learns that Hitler’s war has suddenly become their war, sirens begin blaring as a squadron of airplanes flies over Oosterbeek. Antje, Gerrit and Cornelis are too young to understand what is really going on around them. All they know is that they are powerless as they watch their father cry. As the Germans invade with violence, the Baumanns strive to maintain a quiet life but as war comes to their street and their doorstep, they soon recognize that keeping a low profile is not an option. Antje, Gerrit and Cornelis each respond in their own way to the business of survival. As the Belgian and French armies surrender to the Nazis, Antje loses sight of her second eye, prompting a chain of events to cause all of the Baumann family that surviving in a land of mayhem and death is a greater challenger that they could have ever imagined.

About the Author

Laurence Power is a retired business professional and author of several books including BLACK ’47, a well-researched story on the great Irish Famine of 1846-50 and Half the Battle, a light-hearted memoir of growing up on a farm in Tipperary, Ireland. In spring of 1945 a local priest visited his classroom with collection boxes for the starving children of Holland. Decades later, in Arnhem, he learned of the dramatic happenings during Nazi occupation. These events form part of the novel, which details the Airborne Landings near Arnhem in 1944 and the Hunger Winter that followed. Power resides in Ireland where he continues to write.