Echoes / Danielle Steel / 324 pages / 20th Century Fiction

This heart-wrenching/heart-warming novel spans the twentieth century.  It begins in 1915, when Beatta Wittgenstein meets a dashing French officer, Antoine de Vallerand, at a Swiss resort.  They immediately fall in love.  Both families forbid the union.  Beatta's family is Jewish and German, and Antonie's is Catholic and French.  Beatta and Antoine hope that with time their families will reconcile with them.  Unfortunately, World War II erupts, and Naziism and a stubborn father prevent this hope's realization.  Beatta and Antoine have two daughters, one of whom, Amadea, is called to become a Carmelite nun.  The horrors of World War II are vividly portrayed as well as is the courage, heroism, and faith of the protagonists.  I did hear echoes of the Sound of Music as I read this one...