The Note Through the Wire: The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine

Radio broadcaster Gold (Fun Is a Serious Business) delivers a cinematic account of an unlikely romance that blossomed in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. In 1942, Josefine Lobnik passed a note to New Zealand prisoner of war Bruce Murray through the barbed wire of a prison camp outside Maribor, Slovenia. The message asked Bruce to look for Josefine’s missing brother, Leopold, whom she feared had been captured by the Nazis. All four Lobnik siblings were partisan fighters; 18-year-old Josefine smuggled documents and helped fugitive POWs. Though Bruce determined that Leopold wasn’t in the camp, he couldn’t get a reply message to Josefine. A year later, their paths crossed again at the farm of Josefine’s cousin in Radkersburg, Austria, where Bruce had been sent on a work detail. Their connection deepened, and in April 1945, Josefine helped Bruce escape from the Nazis and join the Soviet forces invading Radkersbug. After the war, Bruce and Josefine married and settled in New Zealand, where they raised three children. Gold—who admits to taking liberties with the timeline and some character details—sets a brisk pace and vividly describes the landscape of war-torn Europe. This WWII love story enthralls. (Mar.)