Danielle Steel
Echoes
© 2004
To my beloved children, who are
so infinitely precious to me, each
of them so special:
Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick, Sam,
Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx, and Zara.
May the echoes of your past, present,
and future always be kind and gentle.
With all my love,
Mommy
d.s.
“It's a wonder I haven't abandoned
all my ideals. They seem so absurd and
impractical. Yet I cling to them because
I still believe, in spite of everything,
that people are truly good at heart.”
– Anne Frank
“Whoever saves one life, saves a
world entire.”
– Talmud
1
IT WAS A LAZY SUMMER AFTERNOON AS BEATA WITTGEN-stein strolled along the shores of Lake Geneva with her parents. The sun was hot and the air still, and as she walked pensively behind them, the birds and insects were making a tremendous racket. Beata and her younger sister Brigitte had come to Geneva with their mother for the summer. Beata had just turned twenty, and her sister was three years younger. It had been thirteen months since the Great War had begun the previous summer, and this year her father had wanted them out of Germany for their holiday. It was late August 1915, and he had just spent a month there with them. Both of her brothers were in the army and had managed to get leave to join them for a week. Horst was twenty-three and a lieutenant at divisional headquarters in Munich. Ulm was a captain in the 105th Infantry Regiment, part of the Thirtieth Division, attached to the Fourth Army. He had just turned twenty-seven during the week he spent with them in Geneva.