Lendle

This Medal is for you, PapaWhen Sunday came it was the worst ever. Fear sat inside twelve-year old Hanna like a lump of stale bread she couldn’t swallow. She stared at her pastor- father, silently willing him not to talk about the Jews. Germans were forbidden to have anything to do with Jews. With Germany at war the eyes of the secret police, the Gestapo, were everywhere, even here in the village of Rosswalden. When a sign is nailed to the parsonage fence accusing her father of being a “Servant of Jews” he insists that Hanna take his picture standing proudly by the sign. Though her mother destroys the sign, someone betrays her father to the Gestapo and he is sent into the army for punishment. Her family must bear the disgrace and loss. “I will never forgive you, Papa,” Hanna cries. “You could have chosen safe Bible stories to preach on.” Why was her father so proud and stubborn for mere words? Hanna, her mother, and young brother Martin must survive without him as Germany begins to lose the war, and the struggle becomes a search for daily food. When Olga, a member of the Hitler youth discovers the “Jew Servant” picture of her father and insists on taking it to the Gestapo, Hanna must find a way to destroy the evidence. The end of the war and news of her father’s death brings the end of all Hanna’s hopes for an education as a pastor’s daughter. Her family faces a bleak future. Was it all for nothing?When Hanna meets a group of Jewish refugees who call her father a hero she is challenged by the choice to believe Olga’s words or the things her father believed and died for. How will she say the words that will comfort her brother Martin? On the day of the memorial funeral Hanna chooses. “This Medal is for you, Papa” is based on the true story of Hanna and her father, a German pastor during WWII.