Gone with War is an international war epic set in the days before, during, and after WWII,
based on a real story about a patient of mine, a Chinese-German woman who lost her
father in a US air raid in Germany, and was separated from her entire family. My patient not
only told me her family story, but also gave me many of her family photos regarding the
story.
Gone with War follows the lives of the Zhou sisters who lose each other in the brutality and
upheaval of war. One sister, Zhou Hannah, ends up in China, experiencing the Sino-
Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War as power exchanged hands from the Nationalists
to the Communists. The other sister, Zhou Anja, is left in Germany under Nazi rule, in love
with her stepbrother, Lucas, whose loyalty to Hitler sends him to the battlefield, and renders
her family targets of recrimination after the war ends US military occupies Germany.
She ultimately ends up in New York, where despite her Chinese face, she doesn't feel
accepted by the Chinese community.
Why are the sisters separate? Are Zhou Anja and Lucas reunited and married? Or Is Zhou
Anja expatriated into different lovers? What happened to Zhou Hannah’s fate in China? Does
she survive so many wars? Would the sisters meet again after their separation? This is a
story about how individual lives are affected by major historical events and provides a
unique vision of this era that surpasses cultural boundaries.