Task 2: Scene 1

Claudia Stevens has everything a woman in her early thirties could wish for: a job as Senior
Broadcast Manager at a top television station, a loving, handsome British husband who is the
CEO of a leading pharmaceutical firm, and two children, a three-year-old daughter and an eight-
year-old son, both of whom attend the most expensive elite private school in town.
After a long holiday at her mother’s house in Berlin, she is back in her lovely duplex in Frankfurt,
fast asleep knowing that she’s still on leave and has a full week to go before she rejoins work.
She is relaxed that everything is as it should be. Her husband is on a business trip in New York,
and her children are at school like every weekday.
It’s 11.30am, and she is still reveling in the comfort of her bed, enjoying the softness of the
pillows against her body. A deafening siren, followed by the sound of a warplane, startles her
out of her slumber. She instantly leaps from her bed and raises the window blinds to look
outside. And what she discovers astounds her: jets dumping bombs on buildings, turning them
into huge, dense clouds of dust.
She dashes to the lounge to watch the news. “Britain and France declare war on Germany. Mr
Chamberlain issued a warning to Germany before …”
The remote control slips out her hand, and the first thought that comes to her mind is “Emma
and Hans?”, her children, her sole reason for living.