The Orphan's Tale

Pam Jennoff is the author of the historical fiction novel called The Orphan's Tale. The story is about the friendship of two women during World War Two in Germany. Noa was 16 when her parent's threw her out of the house for being pregnant. A Nazi officer had made false promises to her. She is taken to a Nazi home for pregnant women. Her child would be given to the Reich. Her son had dark hair and dark eyes. He was deemed unsuitable for the Reich. Noa was expelled from the home. She got a job at a train station. She slept in the attic above the train station. One day she heard noises from a train car. The train car was full of babies being sent to a prison camp. The babies were cold, dirty, and hungry. Noa decides to save one of the babies. She takes him with her through the woods in the winter. When she is overcome by the cold, a fellow named Peter finds her. Peter works as a clown at a circus that over winters near these woods. When Noa awakens she claims the baby is her brother and she ran away from an abusive father. She offers to cook and clean to support herself and the baby until she can recover. The circus owner says he doesn't need a cook nor a cleaner. He needs an aerialist. He needs a trapeze artist. Noa trains with the other trapeze artist, Astrid. Astrid came to the circus looking for help. She grew up at a nearby circus. She left the circus when she married a Nazi officer and moved to Berlin. Soon the Nazi's insisted that all officers must abandon their wives if the wives were Jewish. The friendship between Astrid and Noa provides the bulk of this lovely story. This book had a long epilogue (35 minutes long) which wrapped up all the loose ends neatly.