MY FATHER HAD THIS LUGER … A True Story Of Hitler's Greece

"THE SWORD OF ZEUS PROJECT, which produced this book, is one of the most remarkable historical publishing undertakings of recent years. This work impressively confirms and reflects its high quality.”- Aris Melissaratos, Senior Advisor to the President of Johns Hopkins University.

World War II seen with a 21st-century sensibility. An enthralling, moving and true story of the Nazi occupation of Greece, it reads with the speed of a compelling novel as it sweeps you vividly through the war with unflagging narrative pace. It leaves you with a fresh understanding of the war and o the indomitability of the human spirit. It delivers suspense, endless surprises and twists, sharp characterizations, insights into human nature and the indestructibility of family ties, and a fascinating historical education along the way. Like Bryce Courtenay's THE POWEROF ONE, this book uses a boy's experiences as a way to embed the reader into incidents filled with thought-provoking moral nuance. The gripping story is packed with events from hilarious episodes, described with a child's honesty, through poignant moments to profound terror. The descriptions of wartime menace are frightening but soldiers of all sides, as well as civilians caught up in the drama of the war, are drawn with humanity and compassion.

The book unfolds with a fine eye for detail. The rich historical backdrop is painted in an often poetic but always crystal-clear and unpretentious prose, as though the narrator is speaking to you alone. The book opens when Greece is invaded by Italy's dictator, Mussolini. The outnumbered Greeks repel the invasion and the boy Evangelos' father is assigned to run a Prisoner of War facility for captured Italians, bringing the child into close contact with the prisoners Mussolini calls in his ally, Hitler. One day Evangelos' father brings home a Luger pistol confiscated from a captured German. The Luger becomes a symbol of all that follows. Jackboots march through Athens, the swastika rises over the Acropolis, Wehrmacht troops are stationed across the road from Evangelos' home. He befriends German soldiers and learns to see them not just as soldiers but as men. His rooftop gives him a ringside seat of the coming and going of Luftwaffe planes. What he sees and learns and is made to experience, as the German noose grows tighter, makes him grow up more quickly than he had ever dreamed possible. And when the Allies eventually arrive to replace the Germans, their presence turns out to be shockingly different from the liberation that the besieged Greeks had expected. An eye-opening picture of the realities of war and its impacts on ordinary people, including those who never lose hope. Throughout it all, the small boy Evangelos slips through the neighborhood like a mouse, always underfoot, watching events from the unique vantage point of an ever-present witness. An unforgettable portrait of the heroism dwelling within ordinary people, an eloquent testimony to the power of human endurance, laughter and the will to survive.. Every age group, from young adults up, will find its own layers of meaning. Produced under the auspices of a history-as-literature project guided by experts including veteran Reader's Digest editors.

"MY FATHER HAD THIS LUGER... is about timeless things that transcend war and which are as relevant today as the years in which the events of this story took place. This is a story of family, community and the ways in which countless small rituals and other shared things give human life its meaning. It is about loyalty and sticking together, about personal triumph, about hope, about the universality of childhood and the importance of imagination. It is about the ability of the human mind to find comedy even amid awful things, and take nourishment from it." - N.J. Slabbert, Literary Director, THE SWORD OF ZEUS PROJECT.