Anna: What time does not heal

Germany, 1943: While her father fights at the front, his daughter clings to the hope that he will return home one day. When she is bombed out, she flees to the countryside: a new place, new faces, she is a stranger among strangers. There is no chance of her father finding her – if he is still alive. Although they don’t speak the same language, the daughter finds a friend in Anna, a young Ukrainian forced laborer. Without words, only through dance, they grow closer. But the war also tears Anna from her life. The girl stays behind, becomes a woman, the years pass, but time does not heal her wounds. Once you have experienced what war means, you never forget it. Christina Laube and Mehrdad Zaeri use words sparingly and images powerfully to tell the story of a girl who lost everything in the Second World War. Decades later, now well over eighty years old, she asked the artist duo to create a memorial to her former friend Anna. Based on her true story, this book may be a place for all those who have no place for their grief.

Photographer Christina Laube and Iranian-born illustrator and storyteller Mehrdad Zaeri live in Mannheim. The two are not only a couple, but also form the duo Sourati, who create poetic murals.

Age recommendation: from 12 years
Language: German