Helene’s idyllic childhood in rural Germany comes to an abrupt end on the outbreak of the First World War. Her father is sent to the Eastern Front, returning home only to die, and her Jewish mother withdraws into confusion to escape the neighbours’ hostility. Helene calls her blind in the heart, and fears her mother’s growing coldness, as she hardly seems to notice her daughters any more. Helene wants to study medicine, an unusual dream for a woman at the beginning of the last century. After her