“Liberation or Occupation? The Untold Stories of German Women in 1945

Anna did not go home immediately.

The river moved slowly through the broken city, carrying ash, splinters of wood, and the occasional twisted scrap of metal from bridges that had once stood proud. Frankfurt at night smelled of wet stone, smoke, and something sour that never quite left since the bombings.

She watched the dark water and tried to remember what the city had looked like before the war.

Sometimes she couldn’t.