Join us in celebrating the Austin launch of Catherine A. Hamilton’s debut novel, Victoria’s War. This novel gives voice to the courageous Polish women who were kidnapped into real-life Nazi slave labor operations during WWII. Inspired by true stories, this lost chapter of history won’t soon be forgotten again.
This event will take place via Zoom; details below. The book can be purchased via our online store here, or call us on 512-322-2097 to arrange curbside pick up.
POLAND, 1939: Nineteen-year-old Victoria Darski is eager to move away to college: her bags are packed and her train ticket is in hand. But instead of boarding a train to the University of Warsaw, she finds her world turned upside down when World War II breaks out. Victoria’s father is sent to a raging battlefront, and the Darski women must face the cruelty of the invaders without him. When Victoria decides to go to a resistance meeting with her best friend, Sylvia, they are captured by human traffickers targeting Polish teenagers. Sylvia is sent to work in a brothel, and Victoria is transported by cattle car to Berlin, where she is auctioned off as a slave.
GERMANY, 1941: Twenty-year-old Etta Tod is at Mercy Hospital about to undergo involuntary sterilization because of the Fuhrer’s mandate to eliminate hereditary deafness. Etta, an artist, silently critiques the propaganda poster on the waiting room wall while her mother tries to convince her she should be glad to get rid of her monthlies. Etta is the daughter of the German shopkeeper who buys Victoria at auction in Berlin.
The stories of Victoria and Etta intertwine in the bakery’s attic where Victoria is held—the same place where Etta has hidden her anti-Nazi paintings. The two women form a quick and enduring bond. But when they’re caught stealing bread from the bakery and smuggling it to a nearby work camp, everything changes.
A native Oregonian of Polish descent, Catherine A. Hamilton was born in the small town of Sweet Home, Oregon. After finishing high school, she moved to Portland where she graduated from Lewis and Clark College in 1984 with a Master’s degree in psychology. She spent 12 years as a psychotherapist, publishing dozens of articles in her field. She presented papers at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting in New York City, and one article was featured in the NYT the following day. After joining a writing group and trying her hand at fiction, her stories, articles, and poems were published in magazines and newspapers—including the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Oregonian, the Catholic Sentinel, and the Polish American Journal. She closed her private practice and started writing fiction full-time. A local talk-news show interviewed Catherine on radio and television about a piece she wrote for Brainstorm Magazine, and she was also interviewed for TV after the death of Pope John Paul II. She had met the pope in his private library while on pilgrimage in Rome, and had presented him with some of her work. She also has a chapter in the book Forgotten Survivors (University Press of Kansas, 2004).
Join Zoom Meeting:
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