Válka, láska, Jeruzalém – Šimron Gad (2025)

This Czech-language historical novel, described as a Jerusalem Casablanca, follows a dramatic wartime love story that history should never have allowed to begin. Jerusalem in the 1930s: Támar-Henrietta is a Jewish woman from Vienna who has fled Hitler, while Wolfgang is a Christian from the local German Colony and the son of Templers, a community in which many sympathise with the Nazis. They fall in love, but their relationship is doomed from the start. Heartbroken, Wolfgang leaves for Germany. When war breaks out, he is called up as a paratrooper and returns to Palestine, this time as a soldier of the Third Reich. Támar, desperately trying to forget him, catches sight of him in the streets of Jerusalem just as Rommel’s Afrika Korps advances towards the borders of Palestine. Against the background of wartime events unfolds a story of love defying fate and history. Jews and Germans, British and Arabs, members of the underground, British detectives and Nazi spies all inhabit this sweeping historical novel, which brings to life turbulent Jerusalem during the British Mandate. Based on thorough research, it combines real people and events with fictional destinies. Former Mossad agent and writer Gad Šimron draws on his family history and once again demonstrates his skill as a storyteller.