Crooked Cross

By: Sally Carson

Narrated by: Stephanie Racine

"A remarkable novel: chilling, compelling, contained..." The Times

"...warrants a permanent place in the growing canon of World War Two literature." Clare McHugh, BBC Culture

It is Christmas Eve 1932, and the Kluger family are celebrating at home. Their only daughter Lexa is excited about her upcoming summer wedding to Moritz Weissmann, a promising young doctor.

Lexa has many admirers, but her heart belongs to Moritz, who is initially welcomed by her parents and two brothers, Helmy and Erich. As the year progresses, Lexa enjoys skiing, swimming and going to parties with Moritz and her friends. But little by little Moritz is excluded from the pool, the library, and eventually his own home.

As support for the Nazi Party grows rapidly across the country, Lexa’s own brothers, now fervent members of the Nazi Youth, turn against Moritz. Under immense pressure and desperate to be together, Lexa and Moritz have to meet in secret.

By midsummer, the once close-knit Kluger family are now fractured by irreconcilable beliefs and differing loyalties. When legislation strips the town’s Jewish citizens of their rights and their livelihoods, Lexa remains steadfast in her determination to stay true to Moritz.

Crooked Cross is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This novel was first published in 1934.

Critic reviews

Gripping... utterly vivid.

…warrants a permanent place in the growing canon of World War Two literature. (Clare McHugh)

Cautionary, prescient... un-putdownable.

Sally Carson’s prescient novel offers an unflinching look at the early days of Nazism, resonating with today’s fears of lost boys, strong men and old hatreds... A remarkable novel: chilling, compelling, contained... a propulsive read...

Perhaps one of the most important books Persephone has ever reissued.... Astonishingly readable, a family saga with a propulsive terrible energy to it and I have raced through it the last two days... I so recommend this book to everyone. (Harriet Evans, novelist)

Carson’s dissection of the question that has disturbed the European mind for decades – how did it happen? – has touched a contemporary nerve [....] The novel is driven by a steady building of cold dread (Dinah Birch)

True story of pre Second World War Fermany under his rule of the crooked cross, Swaztika.

Ordinary family living in Germany, written by an Englishwoman , a family long converted to Catholicism, and ancestrallly Jewish. The horrors of the First World War followed by the election of the Nazi party.

Startlingly Prescient

Published in 1934, the style seems slightly dated, however the parallels with our own times are sad and thought provoking. It is well worth the read to understand the resurgence in extremism that we see growing about us.

The history and love of the family

This book is what I’d imagine WWII Germany was like. Just coming back from Germany, we were filled with historical stories and over and over the tour guides reminded us to not go back to this type of world. We visited many cities in Germany so it was easy to be brought back through this story.

Sad but true

This was a sad story but true of the war I would recommend to whomever likes history

Powerful and sadly relevant to USA Today

This is a riveting and beautifully delivered Audible book. I could not stop listening as the author creates characters and a setting that you can see and believe in. The tragedy that enfolds them all is just beginning in this book that only spans 6 months, but it is a story that adds so much to my understanding of how Hitler became the destructive force that he was. So much for us to learn and to be afraid about.