Ruth Friedman and her four children are left alone folloiwng the destruction of their home and the arrest of her husband, Karl.  She is homeless and seeks help from her friends and neighbours who are unwilling to harbour her in case of reprisals.   She manages to make her way to her brother-in-law, Herbert, who takes them in, albeit reluctantly and, as the situation in Germany worsens, he decides to leave the country and go to Argentina leaving Ruth and her family behind.  He goes and to Ruth's horror, she learns  he has been arrested and she and her family are turned out of the apartment which is now claimed by  his housekeeper, Frau Schulz, as her reward for betraying them all to the Gestapo.

As a mother, merely thinking of this profoundly upsets me, a lump forms in my throat and my eyes well up.  My elder daughter is starting a new job later this year in Australia, and I am going to miss her dreadfully and I cry every time I think about it, but I know I will see her again soon and I know this is what she wants to do.  If I feel this way when a grown up daughter, capable and clever and able to look after herself, is leaving on her travels, how must these parents have felt when they waved goodbye to their children knowing that, in all probability, they will never see them again?  It is simply heart breaking and almost impossible to contemplate.   Such bravery for the mother and father to send them away to save them with the knowledge that their lives will probably not last much longer.   When I read in the paper about broken families, about the social fabric breaking down here in the UK because of the denigration of family life that has taken place over the last two decades, I feel so angry at our lack of appreciation of just how vitally important it is - family is everything and these parents knew and understood this.

The two children who leave are reunited with their father in England and we are left with the possibility that Ruth and the younger two will also be able to leave, but she is looking after her sick mother so will she get out in time?  The ending is left vague and so we can only hope that this particular family survives the war.

I am not going to say I 'enjoyed' this book, wrong word to use for such a topic as this, but I was quite overwhelmed by it.  Nothing mawkish or sentimental about the writing, it was clean and strong, no exaggeration was needed to emphasis the horrors of this time, the plain statement of fact is enough. I had not read any of Diney Costeloe prior to this  but now intend to seek her books out.  This is a wonderful book, deeply moving and left me, as with the Book Thief, in tears.

Evil on the Wind is going straight on my list Books of the Year.   Do read....

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