The circumstances surrounding Elinor and Frederick’s relationship were fitting for a passionate affair. There was absolutely nothing to do in Florence; it was a remote town and they were young, full of sexual desire, and seeking release from their own personal troubles. They were each other’s forbidden fruit, and anything that brought them happiness during the war was worth the risk. And the two never seemed to fear getting caught. But Gwyneth was worried for them.

“Since Frederick was in the kitchen as a baker, he was permitted out of his compound at night. So he was over in the areas for the officers doing the cooking and whatnot. And then Elinor would sneak out. I was nervous about the whole situation, but they weren’t,” Gwyneth said. She admired Elinor for being bold, but began to think she was foolish too. “She knew what could have happened to her,” said Gwyneth of the consequences Elinor would have faced had she been caught. She understood, however, the feelings her friend had for Frederick. “They had the greatest love story.”

Frederick and Elinor refused to spoil their love affair by worrying about getting exposed. Their youth, coupled with their intense urge for each other, made the risk worth it. And the alternative—to not have each other as lovers and confidants during the war—was unthinkable.

Elinor’s initial attraction may have been a subconscious way of telling the U.S. military, Jim Crow, and Nazism to go to hell, but she had since found true love and respect for Frederick, a German POW who happened to be in Hitler’s army by circumstance, not choice. Frederick may have been considered a Nazi by people who automatically associated German soldiers with Nazi ideology, but she knew he wasn’t. He didn’t harbor feelings of racial superiority. Every thing about him was gentle and kind. And Elinor didn’t care about the laws she was breaking to be with him.

The idea of loving a woman who was the embodiment of everything he was supposed to loathe excited Frederick. He felt loved and accepted in Elinor’s presence, and he subconsciously tied her race to those feelings. She was passionate and warm, exactly the way he imagined African Americans to be in the countless hours he spent listening to the music of black jazz artists. Elinor made him feel like a hero, and her dependence on him gave him the confidence and purpose he had been deprived of while growing up without the approval of his father. And though Frederick knew being intimate with a black woman was a major taboo, he didn’t care.

Eventually others began to notice, and at some point rumors began to spread. On one occasion when Frederick was assigned to farm work, to his surprise one of the agricultural captains tried to dissuade him from pursuing Elinor, not because she was an army officer but because she was black.