Stephanie is accompanied by Aunt Marta to Goteberg and to the Soderberg's home, a four story yellow brick building. The Sodeberg's have a beautiful home with "elegant rugs" and "antique furniture". Stephanie is to room in the bedroom of the Soderberg's daughter, Karin who has married. The room has beautiful white furniture, a small mirrored dressing table, a bed with a pink bedspread and a spacious closet. It also has a door that connects to Sven's room next door.
The first evening Stephanie is invited to dinner with Dr. Soderberg and his wife. But when she tells him what has happened to her own father - also a doctor - he changes the subject. Sven returns home on the Sunday evening along with his dog, Putte. He is puzzled to find Stephanie eating dinner in the kitchen with their maid, Elena and decides also to eat there. Sven also refuses his mother's invitation to accompany them as they go to pick up his sister Karin and her husband Olle, instead taking Stephanie for a walk so she knows the way to her school.
Stephanie and Sven walk through part of the city with its new theatre, art museum and concert hall. This is different from Vienna where the buildings are all very old. Still Goteberg brings back memories of Vienna, with its trams and cobblestone streets, its shops and tall buildings. Sven shows her the Girls Grammar School she will attend and they then go to a lily pond. The small pond has white water lilies but also red lilies further out, along with swans and ducks. Sven warns Stephanie that some teachers are supportive of "the new German order".
At school Stephanie is in a different class from her island school mates, Ingrid and Sylvia. Her homeroom teacher is Hedvig Bjork, who will teach math and biology. Stephanie takes an instant like to Ms. Bjork who is friendly and enthusiastic.
After a half day of class, Stephanie makes a new friend in May Karlsson and they agree to sit next to one another in class. May explains the tram lines to Stephanie, telling her that she lives in Mayhill. The two girls also have Miss Fredriksson for history and Christian studies and Miss Krantz for German. Miss Krantz admonishes Stephanie for speaking Viennese German insisting that the only German that will be spoken in her class is that spoken in Berlin, the capital of the Reich.
Stephanie's school is very near to Sven's boy's school and boys often wait outside the school fence for girls. Two girls, Lilian and Harriet are the only girls in Stephanie's class who have boys waiting for them. While everyone wants to be in Lilian and Harriet's circle of friends, May doesn't and neither does Alice Martin, an unfriendly classmate whom Stephanie has been trying to befriend. When Lilian and Harriet talk about their boyfriends and love, Stephanie believes they don't know what it is to be in love like she does. Unfortunately, Stephanie is confusing Sven's friendship for something more.
Stephanie continues to visit Aunt Marta and Uncle Evert, and she also visits Vera who is interested in life in a city like Goteberg. Unlike Stephanie who wants to become a doctor, Vera dreams of marrying a wealthy man to save her from poverty. Visits to the island reveal that Nellie is losing her ability to speak German and is losing her Jewish faith. This is evident from a second visit when Nellie wonders if God isn't helping their parents because they are not Christians.
When Stephanie returns to school after her weekend visit, Harriet and Lilian question her as to the identity of the handsome boy who met her at the school gates. Stephanie lies to them, telling the two girls she and the boy are "going steady". It is a lie that leads to more and more lies.
In addition to all this, Stephanie must deal with the uncertainty of her parents situation as Jews in occupied Austria. As conditions deteriorate more and more for the Jews in Austria, her parents find themselves increasingly restricted in where they can work and shop. Desperate to leave Austria for the United States, they attempt to obtain exit visas. Just when things seem to be working to their advantage, Stephanie's mother becomes ill with pneumonia and cannot travel. Stephanie is experiencing her own crisis when she is accused of cheating and then makes a shocking discovery about Sven. But just when she's about to give up on her dreams, true friends come to the rescue, leaving Stephanie hope for a better future.
Discussion
The Lily Pond is the second novel in the series about two sisters who were part of the transport of five hundred Jewish children to Sweden at the onset of World War II. While the main story focuses on Stephanie's day to day life at the girls grammar school and her struggles as a teen refugee during war, Annika Thor also hints at the broader events occuring in Nazi Germany through letters by Stephanie's parents.
The Lily Pond is the second novel in the series about two sisters who were part of the transport of five hundred Jewish children to Sweden at the onset of World War II. While the main story focuses on Stephanie's day to day life at the girls grammar school and her struggles as a teen refugee during war, Annika Thor also hints at the broader events occuring in Nazi Germany through letters by Stephanie's parents.
As an Austrian-Jewish refugee now living in Sweden, Stephanie must adapt to life in a very different culture. Although Stephanie is flourishing academically, she is struggling to deal with the many situations a young teenage girl encounters. She has moved from an island where she's only lived a year to a new city where she knows no one. Fortunately, Stephanie makes a good friend in May Karlsson who lives in the poorer Mayhill district. May's large family are welcoming towards Stephanie and are very sympathetic to her situation.
Life with Soderberg family is also challenging as it brings back memories of Stephanie's own family. However, unlike Stephanie's own parents, the non-Jewish Soderbergs who live in a large home with a maid, remain relatively untouched by war at this point. And like many Swedes, they do not yet understand what is really happening in Europe. This is seen by Mrs. Soderberg's insensitive remarks to Aunt Marta when she complains about rationing and how the fishermen have it lucky. Mrs. Soderberg doesn't understand the risks that people like Marta's husband, Evert are taking navigating in waters with mines.
When Stephanie attempts to tell Dr. Soderberg about her own father and how he has had his medical practice taken away by the Nazis, he quickly changes the subject. They do not know that her father has lost his practice and is now working in a Jewish hospital that has few medicines to treat the Jewish patients. Her mother, once a fashionable, elegant woman is now working as a maid.
Stephanie is further humiliated when she is asked to stay at the Soderberg's home during a weekend instead of returning to the island as the Soderberg's are having a dinner party. Stephanie who has attended her parent's dinner parties in Vienna, believes she will be part of the dinner but instead is stunned to learn that she will be serving at the dinner. Even worse she is introduced to the guests as a refugee.
The Soderberg's inability to comprehend what is happening to Jews in Europe is revealed at dinner after Christmas when Stephanie tells them that her parents were unable to leave for America because her mother fell ill. When Mrs. Soderberg suggests that Stephanie's mother might be able to convalese in the countryside, not understanding the situation at all, Stephanie becomes enraged. While Sven wants Stephanie to tell them what is really happening, his mother and father shut the discussion down. They do not want to face the unpleasant reality of what is happening to Jews in Europe.
Even at school Stephanie encounters prejudice. Stephanie finds that one girl, Alice Martin who is the only girl with dark hair like her, inexplicably hates her. Eventually Stephanie learns why. Stephanie makes Alice feel ashamed to be Jewish. She tells Stephanie, "My family has lived here for four generations...We've never had to be embarrassed about being Jewish. My parents and grandparents speak perfect Swedish. My father's a prominent businessman. We socialize with everyone worth knowing in this city. But now you refugees are turning up. People who have nothing, and who can't even speak Swedish. That makes it different for us, too. People might think we're like you." Like the Soderbergs, Alice Martin and her family refuse to face the reality of what is happening.
In this way, Annika Thor highlights the plight of Jewish refugee children assimilating into a new culture without the benfit of their parents and often other Jewish children and families. No doubt these children found it difficult when their beliefs clashed with those of their foster families. During this era, there was little respect or tolerance towards the Jewish children's beliefs and often they were expected to adopt Christian beliefs. In some cases this was required for survival, as when children were given shelter in Nazi occupied areas of Europe. There can be no doubt that for many small children, as demonstrated in The Lily Pond with Stephanie's younger sister, Nellie, this caused doubt, and confusion. Stephanie's visits to the island reveal that not only is Nellie losing her ability to speak German but she is also forgetting her Jewish beliefs.
The letters Stephanie receives from her parents, trapped in Austria reveal the plight of many European Jews during the late 1930's and the early 1940s. Her parents letters reveal that living conditions are becoming desperate, with little food and medicine. Restrictions make life very disfficult for Jews. Few countries were willing to accept adult Jews, as Stephanie discovered in the first novel, Faraway Island when Aunt Marta and Uncle Evert petition the Relief Committee to take in her parents. And in The Lily Pond, as with Stephanie's parents, those Jews lucky enough to get a visa to America or another country sometimes were unable to leave due to illness or other circumstances. And sadly that is what happens with Stephanie's mother, who is too ill with pneumonia to travel, despite having a visa to America.
Set against this larger story is Stephanie's infatuation with Sven, the son of the Soderbergs. Sven doesn't treat her like a boarder - in fact he's more like a good friend. leading the lonely Stephanie to misunderstand his kindness. Soon after she arrives as the Soderberg's home, Sven takes Stephanie to a small lily pond, where they sit and talk. Sven is completely unaware of Stephanie's crush on him as he views her as a little sister.
Once Stephanie begins to lie about her relationship with Sven, one lie leads to another. However, Stephanie doesn't repeat these lies to her friend May because she knows "May knows her much too well; she'd see right through her." Stephanie also begins to realize that she's going to have to continue to lie to satisfy Harriet and Lilian. "Well, that won't be difficult. She's already pictured it all in her head, images of romantic scenes that will make Lilian sigh and Harriet long to hear more...Marvelous scenes starring her and Sven..." For Stephanie, this is her chance to become a part of Harriet and Lilian's friend group and keep them liking her. It's her chance to fit in, to belong, something as a Jewish refugee she longs for.
However, during a crisis that forms the climax of the novel, Stephanie's lies catch up with her and she receives a reality check. Fleeing from school after being falsely accused of cheating, Stephanie sees Sven at the lily pond with his girlfriend, Irja. In a scene that is overly dramatic and probably unlikely in 1940s Sweden, a hysterical Stephanie reveals her feelings and demands Sven kiss her, which he reluctantly does.
Despite the over-the-top drama, there is a happy resolution to both the issue at school and between Stephanie and Sven, who remain friends. As an aside, while Sven apologizes to Stephanie, she never apologizes to him. Nevertheless, The Lily Pond is an interesting novel about life in 1940's Sweden. This novel also has a scene reminiscent of the Anne of Green Gables novel, when Stephanie saves May's younger sister, Ninni from a croup attack (in the novel Anne of Green Gables, Anne saves Diana Barry's younger sister Minnie May from croup).
Book Details:
The Lily Pond by Annika Thor
Delacorte Press 2011
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