'HITLER AND MARS BARS' - A NEW BOOK SET IN 1940S GERMANY AND IRELAND PROVIDES A UNIQUE WINDOW INTO 1940S IRELAND

'Hitler and Mars Bars', winner of Trafford Publishing’s Best Book Prize, offers a unique glimpse of 1940s Ireland. Operation Shamrock, the little known Red Cross project which aided German children after WW2, provides the backdrop for this novel. The book weaves a poignant tale about the experiences of a child helped by this endeavour.

Growing up in Germany’s embattled Ruhr area Erich knows only war and deprivation. His beloved mother’s disappearance after a heavy bombing raid leaves him responsible for his younger brother. When the war ends the Red Cross transports him, along with hundreds of German children, to Ireland to recuperate. During the next few years he moves around Ireland through a string of foster families. Separated from his brother, he experiences indifference, brutality, love and acceptance in varying measures. He finds a loving home with one farm family but is unable to stay with them. As he prepares to leave school on his fourteenth birthday, he is determined to make a fresh start and an apprenticeship offered by Belfast based Dr Barnardo’s Homes is his chance.

This is the moving story of a German evacuee boy’s journey to manhood through loss, loneliness, fear, uncertainty, love, and hope in war-torn Germany and post-war rural Ireland.

“Hitler And Mars Bars” by Dianne Ascroft, ISBN: 978-1-4251-4591-0

Trafford Publishing, Price: £11.99, Historical Fiction, 338 pages, paperback original

Website: www.geocities.com/dianne_ascroft

The book is available to order from TRAFFORD LTD (www.trafford.com/07-1955), AMAZON UK (www.amazon.co.uk) and the author’s website (www.geocities.com/dianne_ascroft). Also available to order from all bookshops.