A Light Beyond the Trenches: A WW1 Novel of Betrayal and Resilience

Heartbreaking WW1 story about the many blinded veterans due to chemical warfare and the start of the World's first guide dog school thanks to Dr Gerhard Stalling. who was inspired to use German Shepherd's to improve the quality of life for these soldiers. Anna, a nurse who looks after the dogs at the first guide school, meets Max, a blind German Jew soldier, whose life is made easier by getting Nia, one of these wonderful guide dogs. The main characters in this book were wonderful including Nia. I enjoyed when I was reading about them. It was hard to read about the start of chemical warfare. I cried at the end but also felt uplifted.

Guide Dogs for Veterans An inspiring story of the start of a guide dog school for blinded veterans during WWI and the German Shepherd dogs trained to guide them. This provided these brave men with a way to regain some of their freedom and former lives. Anna is a nurse at the hospital in Oldenburg Germany. Maybe not the most experienced. She struggles with everyday tasks at the hospital. What she lacks in technique she makes up for in compassion for the many wounded soldiers she cares for every day. The war is taking its toll on everyone. Anna's fiancée Bruno is fighting at the western front and rationing is slowly starving the civilian population. There are a few bright moments in her job. One day as she is in the hospital garden talking to Dr. Stallings they both watch as a German Shepherd dog guides a blinded soldier along the garden path. At that moment, they have a vision of a training school to provide shepherd guide dogs for the blinded soldiers returning from the war. Anna asks Dr. Stallings to be included in this venture and although she wishes to be a trainer, as a woman she is put in charge of feeding, cleaning and taking care of the dogs. When she nurses a wounded ambulance dog named Nia back to life she wants so badly to be a trainer and to save this dog as a guide dog. Max is a Jewish veteran who lost his sight in the battlefield. Since the trainer his is assigned to will not have a Jewish man in his home, Anna takes Max into her home where she lives with her father and Nia whom she is still caring for. As Max trains, none of the dogs bond with him and he does not do well with the trainers, especially the one that doesn't like him because he is Jewish. Anna starts training him with Nia a home and eventually is allowed to train with him and Nia. This is their story and the story of the school for guide dogs. This was an inspirational story with some very special characters. I really liked the character of Anna's father he was such a special person with so much hope, encouragement and love for Anna. The character of Max was as very special. I didn't like the trainer with anti-semantic views , nor did I especially like Bruno's character although both of them were good for their parts. I enjoyed reading this book and I would most definitely recommend it to others. You will enjoy reading it as much as I did. Thanks to Alan Hlad for writing a great story, to Kensington Books for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available to me.