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Swap the books you've read, for some you haven't!
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Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
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Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
Synopsis: For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmführer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the heartbreaking truth of her mother's life. Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother-daughter drama, Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive and the legacy of shame.
Review: This is the story of Trudy and her mother Anna. Trudy is a University Professor of History at University where she teaches. Born in Germany she and her mother manage to start a new life in America after the war. The theme is one of search for identity, Trudy's identity and she realises who she is in a most unsuspecting way. Flitting back to her mother Anna's experience in the war and what she must do to "save" her daughter from starvation Anna must become involved with an SS Officer of high rank. There is, however, a secret which can never be divulged during these times and ultimately Anna will never admit to Trudy's birthright. We are transported between Nazi Germany and modern Minnesota as the story unfolds. Trudy decides to research the experience of Germans who lived during the time of Hitler and how they interacted with the Jews believing that she is the child of the liaison between her mother and the German Officer. Many of these older Germans did not admit to a culpability of Jew hatred or complicity in handing over the Jews to the Nazis. It is only in an interview with a German who lived in the same time that she becomes aware of the deep secret kept from her all her life. Jenna Blum does not point the finger of accusation but in a considered way allows us to look at the situation and formalise our own conclusions regarding her mother's war time behaviour and that of other Germans.
Jenna Blum's first novel is sensitively written and although one might consider that its initial appeal might be to female readers, I found myself reading the book whenever I could and my attention did not waiver. At first I was not convinced of the plausability of such a story line and looking through Jenna Blum's biographical notes she worked with Steven Spielbergs Shoah Foundation where she must have got some ideas for this book. Certain scenes of intimacy between Anna and her Officer lover could have been sensationalised. Blum avoids any smut and although the reader will understand the nature of these moments they are not thrust down our throat in a manner of speaking. I look forward to Jenna Blum's next book.
Review: I found the first half of this book to be very interesting and certainly the "page turner" that many others have described. The parts written from Anna's point of view were great and engaging... but I couldn't have cared less about Trudy. There was nothing about that character that made me like her in the least. I thought her a spoiled, arrogant, bratty person. What I really wanted to do was skip all of her parts of the book and read only the parts about Anna.
**spoiler alert**
The big revelation at the end of the book was highly anti-climatic. It was just like all of a sudden the book was finished. I expected a lot more in the reveal, a bigger confrontation or conversation between Anna and Trudy - for Anna to tell her daughter with her own words what happened and how she felt about it all these years later. I felt very let down by the end of this book.
**spoiler end**
I also found the style of prose to be very annoying. Quotation marks are not used to set off characters speaking and it becomes kind of difficult to read in a visual way. Not exactly sure why this was done, but I found it distracting.
A decent read, but don't rush out to buy it.
Review: Thank you to the author for sharing this amazing story. I truly felt the confusion and desperation of the characters (even, in part, the 'bad guys') and how our life choices can haunt us when we view them through our own shadowed lenses.
Review: The book was wonderfully written and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are so many Holocaust books written but his one had a great viewpoint.
Review: Interesting story we have heard before. Annoyingly written, and really needs editing. Inaccuracies regarding certain facts related to Holocaust.
Review: I thought the experiences of the characters were probably based on some fact. The story depicted to me the right to survive and persist during the most trying time in world history. Judgement of the main character could be harsh if one has never experienced a life threatening situation for themselves or their love ones. The guilt of surviving and how it was accomplished haunts the woman who had to do what she did to protect her loved one. The author kept my interest througout the book and at times I felt deeply for the woman and how she submitted herself to survive.
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