About the Book:

Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days Emma’s husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground, leaving her imprisoned within the city’s decrepit, moldering Jewish ghetto. But then, in the dead of night, the resistance smuggles her out. Taken to Krakow to live with Jacob’s Catholic cousin, Krysia, Emma takes on a new identity as Anna Lipowski, a gentile.

Emma’s already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who hires her to work as his assistant. Urged by the resistance to use her position to access details of the Nazi occupation, Emma must compromise her safety—and her marriage vows—in order to help Jacob’s cause. As the atrocities of war intensify, so does Emma’s relationship with the Kommandant, building to a climax that will risk not only her double life, but also the lives of those she loves.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a powerful story, and one of the more memorable of the Holocaust era stories I have read.  This particular topic is so hard to write fiction about for several reasons — everything from the difficulties of not diminishing the magnitude of the crimes that occurred during this time, through to running the risk of not being able to successfully portray the horrors experienced by so many.  The trouble with these books is that they will always be compared to the surviving accounts of true stories — and it is really hard to make a mark in the face of stories that are already so overwhelmingly memorable.  However, Jenoff has successfully presented a story that accomplishes this feat.  And interestingly enough she managed it through the characters, rather than the setting and background.

This is a book that has such well developed characters that I found myself wanting everything to work out for all of them — even though the two main characters, Emma and Kommandant Richwalder are not only at cross purposes, but they are complete enemies.  Is it possible to love someone you hate, and to hate the life of someone that you have fallen in love with?  These two characters really bring out how difficult it can be for relationships — particularly in the midst of war.  It is also a look into how there is both good and bad in everyone — and when we fall in love with someone, we are forced to take both the bad and the good.

This book also presents a look at the difficulties encountered, both  moral, and physical of the people subjected to the challenges of the Nazi regime.  With insights into life in the ghetto’s, the concentration camps, within the Nazi regime, as well as for those that fought so valiantly for the resistance during this time — we really get a feel for the challenge of living during this devastating time in history.

I think the only thing about this book is the doomed nature of some of the relationships and characters presented in this book.  I have always been a fan of not so much romance books, as for love stories that present the difficulties of overcoming life in order to be together.  But this book presents two different love stories — one that we have very little feel for, and one that we come to be involved in through the story telling gifts of Jenoff.  But, as with all relationships — sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don’t.  And going in the reader knows that there is no way they can both work out in this one.

This book also presents a good look at the moral dilemmas of living under the Nazi lifestyle.  Kommandant Richwalder, and the story of his first wife is a look into the difficulties that the average German citizen had to confront when Hitler came to power.  The pain of having to try to survive, while at the same time remaining true to their own moral values was more than just challenging.  And when religions were finally as black listed as all the Jewish people, we come to see that sometimes the choices between right and wrong are not always black and white.  Sometimes the choices we are forced to make are not only difficult — but more a choice between bad and worse.  And when we are faced with these kinds of choices, how does one choose between the varying shades of gray?

This really is a great book.  It is a wonderful love story, as well as a great novel that adds to the Holocaust era genre of literature.

Tags: Concentration Camps, Government, Grief, Historical Fiction, Holocaust, Loss, Love, Morality, Murder, Romance, World War II

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, World War II