Take the War

Cowardice. Bravery. War calls to the best and the worst in humanity. Ordinary people answer that call in different ways: by finding their courage by acting from the basest weakness or by avoiding the call for as long as possible. An account of loss and reconciliation collaboration and resistance and the flowering of courage in unlikely soil TAKE THE WAR tells an untold tale from the 20th century’s World Wars. Based on true stories – including unpublished letters and diaries – of heroines living and dead TAKE THE WAR captures the Resistance roles played by women in WWI and WWII in France and Belgium. Germaine Mirot thought that she was beginning a new life in Paris in 1915 a life without constriction. But war intervened not for the last time. After a reversal in Paris Germaine travels into German-occupied Belgium with her new acquaintance Sylvie to study at the Brussels Clinique under a nurse who leads an escape network for Allied troops. Germaine works reluctantly for the network desiring only to return safely to France. Instead she meets and falls in love with French soldier Luc an amputee. Luc touches Germaine’s heart with his courageous fight to regain some measure of physical and emotional wholeness. They form a union that tests everything Germaine has understood about love duty and the trajectory of her life.. The story moves to Occupied Paris in 1943. Germaine’s daughter Anjanette a spoiled weak and charming 17 year-old falls in love with Thomas a Resistance fighter. Thomas involves her in his group’s operations despite her political naiveté. Anjanette attempts to match wits with Hans Scheuer the compelling Nazi Occupation liaison chief who has befriended her alcoholic father Luc. When Hitler’s Reich begins to disintegrate Anjanette must face her own challenges in the unraveling turmoil of Europe as the war draws to an end. . At the same time Germaine tries to remain detached from the wrenching moral choices that the War presents and live her life under the radar. But in the final days of the Occupation she embarks on a quest: to find Anjanette before the war’s final chaos erases any trace of her. Germaine finally embraces her destiny and forges the work that will sustain the remainder of her life. . A new contribution to war literature TAKE THE WAR sheds light on the experience of ordinary women who attempt to navigate daily life in wartime settings while finding their courage and becoming heros..