THE UKRAINIANS

It’s the sizzling high summer of 1941. 17 year-olds Vitali and Halyna fancy each other like mad, having been as clingy as a sweaty shirt since secondary school. Halyna badly wants to marry her blonde, blue-eyed boy as soon as she can. Trouble is, Vitali’s a blacksmith’s apprentice and can’t. Their lives are turned upside down when Germany invades Ukraine and they’re force-marched to Dresden as slave labourers. Will they ever see each other again? In the background is Vitali’s mysteriously manipulative sister Maryska. Where does her obvious power and influence come from? He realises he doesn’t know her at all.