“Brown Paper Bag” is based on the experiences of Martin, a little boy who, with his mother and younger sister, left a small village in Bavaria where they had taken refuge during WW II. This journey in 1946, on a northbound train to the Rhineland, shows the desperation and poverty of the post-war period, when people were frantically hunting for food, clothing, and anything they could lay their hands on. The shocking experience at the beginning of the train journey is magnified upon the arrival of the little family in bombed-out Cologne, when Martin is confronted by a grandfatherly man who changes the little boy's perception of Good Samaritans. However, the story ends with a moving surprise. |
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