The Woman Outside the Walls

<p><strong>I always knew it would come out one day. They are finding everyone who has stayed hidden. They would have come to me in the end.</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Hamburg, 1942</strong></p><p>Seventeen-year-old Anna knows she can never tell her proud parents the truth about where she is going. She must hide the fact that she is pregnant, that the father of her unborn child is dead and that she is on her way to a special maternity home, where her baby will be given to a perfect family. She tells herself that this is the best solution. She doesn''t expect to feel the rush of love for her beautiful baby boy in the white blanket, or the devastation when he is snatched from her, never to be seen again.</p><p> </p><p>Desperate to forget her grief, she sees an advert for a secretary in a prison, far away in the east. Days later, she leaves Hamburg, travelling eastwards by train, feeling as if a whole new life is about to begin. It is the biggest mistake she will ever make.</