ABSTRACT
NINA stretched out her arms for a hug and smiled in the sunshine. For the first time in a long time, the tiny two-year-old with the soft brown curls was safe. She wanted to be picked up, held, cradled by big arms. One of the orphanage workers obliged, scooping her up and carrying her to the row of ambulances lined up on the edge of the airstrip. Some of the children looked dazed, some slept and some chattered brightly, enthralled by the attention of all these people milling around. Some kids were badly dehydrated. A little boy with a face full of sores giggled as he played with a toy hippopotamus. The planeload of orphans had touched down moments before at an abandoned Soviet air base just outside the sleepy little east German village of Zerbst. Everyone seemed to linger a bit at the airport, to bask in the balmy weather and the serenity of the surrounding countryside.
