The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert

Two rooms all to themselves, it was almost too good to be true! For this was postwar Germany, filled with starving, homeless people trying to stay alive amidst the rubble, and to the Lechows the two freezing attic rooms in Mrs. Verduz' house on Parsley Street were an unbelievable stroke of luck.

No matter that every stick of furniture and even the cracked dishes were borrowed from a grudging but kind landlady, that food was so scarce they were nearly always hungry, that Matthias, loving the stars and growing things, was assigned to construction work by the Labor Office. Now that there was a roof over their heads, Joey and Andrea could attend school, and perhaps Father, if he was still alive, would find his way to them from the prison camp in Russia.

The Ark paints an honest, realistic picture of the terrible aftermath of war in a defeated country. Most of all, it is the story of courage the courage of real people who, caught up in the adversity that shattered their lives, can still look at the future with hope and at the past without bitterness.