The Radio’s Long Journey

This flow follows radio from Werner’s childhood discovery to the transmitter that links occupied Saint-Malo with distant listeners.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Repaired Receiver

A Repaired Receiver Discovery and repair Werner finds a discarded receiver and patiently repairs its broken coil. Music emerges, astonishing the children around him. A new vocation The device makes invisible waves tangible to Werner and reveals how engineering can bring distant lives into a room. That first successful repair shapes the skill that later draws him into military service.

The French Lessons

The French Lessons Night listening Werner and Jutta tune their radio to a French speaker’s lessons about science, coal, and the natural world. An imagined elsewhere The broadcasts offer Werner an alternative to official slogans and make discovery feel open to anyone, even an orphan from a mining town. The signal gives the siblings an intellectual bond that survives distance, censorship, and war.

A Transmitter for a Ghost

A Transmitter for a Ghost Etienne’s grief Etienne builds a transmitter in the attic and broadcasts recordings of Henri’s voice and music after his brother dies in the First World War. A private ritual He hopes Henri might somehow hear the broadcasts. The machine keeps Etienne connected to a lost brother while allowing him to remain isolated from the world outside. The transmitter begins as an instrument of mourning long before it becomes useful to resistance.

A Secret Signal

A Secret Signal Hidden equipment The occupation orders residents to surrender radio receivers. Etienne and Marie-Laure conceal the attic transmitter behind the wardrobe. Renewed purpose With Madame Manec’s network, Etienne broadcasts coded numbers and messages carried inside ordinary loaves. The device changes from a private memorial into a risky public connection, carrying information through the occupation’s controls.

A Voice Across the Rubble

A Voice Across the Rubble A repaired set Trapped under rubble, Werner restores a damaged radio with scraps, a battery, and the remaining strength in his good ear. The final connection Marie-Laure’s reading reaches him and gives him a reason to leave the cellar and search for her. Radio’s most consequential transmission is not a coded order but a voice that makes an individual’s danger impossible to ignore.

Around 1934, at Children’s House

Mid-1930s, before foreign broadcasts are banned

After 1918 and before the 1940 occupation

1941 to 1942, after radios are confiscated

August 1944, after the Hotel of Bees collapses