Leni is an illegitimate child born in pre-World War II Germany in a small town steeped in superstition. Spurned by her Catholic grandfather and living in poverty, Leni joins the Hitler Youth before leaving school at fourteen to support her mother and younger brothers. With no-one to protect her, a sadistic employer forces her to submit to secret systematic rape or face having her mother interned. Leni quickly learns to stay silent and keep her secret. As the war grinds to an agonising climax, Leni's family flees the advance of the Red Army. Surviving on her wits, she is transformed from a meek, cowed girl to protector of her family. In the post-war chaos she falls pregnant to her boyfriend and the little family finally escapes the devastated continent with migration to Australia under the International Refugee Organisation program. Now isolated in an alien land, they endure the hardships of the Bonegilla Migrant Hostel and face the enormous task of beginning a new life. But Leni's secrets remain and a stunning deathbed revelation sends her daughter, Annette, on a complex search that crosses three continents in a bid to unravel the web of intrigue that protects her mother's ultimate secret. War Child reveals one woman's enormous courage and desperation to protect those she loved most ... right until the final, extraordinary moment of her life.