When We Believed in Miracles

The late 1940s in Germany: the war is finally over – but just like in the rest of the country, the people in the small village of Unnenmoor have hardly found their way back into their lives. The old certainties have been proven false, everything people could once believe in and cling to is no more stable than the moor that gives the town its name. Itinerant preachers proclaim the impending end of the world while also promising salvation and redemption.

Eleven-year-old Betty Abels and her mother Edith can barely make ends meet. Betty’s father died in the war. When Betty disappears one night and her friend Willi turns up in the village beaten black and blue, there is only one explanation: it must be the work of witches. The compulsion to shrug off any sense of guilt for the recent past makes people susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. And who is a more likely suspect than the beautiful Edith, who seems to think she is too good for the few men that are left? The villagers make life increasingly difficult for Betty and Edith. But while the whispering about witches grows louder and louder, progress approaches, with the draining of the moor promising a new beginning for the people of Unnenmoor ...

Helga Bürster’s new novel delves evocatively into the era of despair in Germany after World War II and tells the stories of people who have lost their bearings and who long for a life free from the guilt and shame of the past. Inspired by real events, When We Believed in Miracles is a novel about a little-known chapter of German post-war history.

»Helga Bürster’s novel When We Believed in Miracles is not just full of wonder and miraculous events, it also offers a wonderful reading experience!« Katrin Krämer, NDR