The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

My latest read is a book that's been on my shelves for a few years.  I originally got it with the thought of reading it with the kids at school. Additionally it's on a subject that fascinates me:  The Holocaust.  This one, however, is a bit against the norm.

In The Book Thief, the narrator is Death.  Not the devil; not someone/something evil but the collectors of souls.  The story takes place in Germany during World War II.  Our main character is Liesel Meminger, who, at the age of nine, has already lost everything she holds dear.  She never knew her father; her mother, was a communist and so hunted by the Nazi's, and is forced to give Leisel away with the hope of giving her a life; Leisel's brother died en route to their new parents.  Leisel arrives in the blue-collar neighborhood of Molching.  Her new "mother" is a tough-talking, name-calling woman who loves in her own way, though it takes Leisel a long time to realize this.  Her new "father" is what, at first, gets Leisel through the toughest time in her short life.  With his assistance, Liesel learns how to read and learns how to cope with her nightmares. And as the war picks up speed and things (luxuries like books) are hard to come by, Leisel starts stealing to feed her new love of reading.  With each new book collected, Leisel's life changes.

This was such a different book told in such a unique way.  I took my time reading this because it was a tough subject with a lot of heartache but well worth the read.  Often when I read books about the Holocaust I wonder how a whole German society could let what happened during WWII happen.  This book showed me that most likely, people didn't just sit back and let things happen.  In their own ways they rebelled and did what they could to thumb their noses at Hitler.  Realistically, however, those living in such an upside down society were most focused on surviving.  After reading The Book Thief, I get that. 

I highly recommend this book.  I don't know that I could read it with my kids at school because it is very confusing and would boggle them but anyone else should read it.  (And there's a movie now too).

My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young

What a surprise! Another book on the Holocaust. What is it about the Holocaust? Did I live a past life during that time period or what?

Actually, this book doesn't focus on the camps or even the Jewish plight, so to speak. This one focuses on a subject that I had never heard or read about: Lebensborn, a birthing center for Aryan children, where the slogan is Have one baby for the Führer. Basically, women or girls were getting pregnant in Germany and the surrounding areas by soldiers who had wives/girlfriends elsewhere. As a result, these women were left pregnant with nowhere to go and no way to support their child. Within the Lebensborn's walls, mothers-to-be receive proper nutrition and medical care until their children are taken from them for adoption into Aryan families.

This book focuses on Cyrla, a half-Jewish Dutch girl, living with her dead mother's sister, hiding in plain sight, pretending to be Christian. Several years earlier, she had been sent away by her Jewish father who had seen bad things brewing. Eventually, Cyrla's cousin Annika, whom Cyrla closely resembles, becomes pregnant by a German soldier. Annika's father enrolls her in a Lebensborn. Through horrible events, Cyrla must assume Annika's identity and live in the German Lebensborn until rescued. The horrors Cyrla witnesses are softened only by her resounding optimism and strength.

I liked this book. Good, easy read...not too heavy considering the plot line.

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

So my latest is another Holocaust book.  I know, I know!  I'm constantly reading Holocaust books.  It's an obsession of mine.  I think in a previous life, I must have had some connection to WWII. 

Anyway - this latest novel flips, back and forth between Trudy, a German history professor at a a Minneapolis university and her German mother Anna, who survived WWII through unbelievable ways.  Through Trudy, we see a woman who is struggling to know who and where she comes. She has tried, in the past to get these answers from her mother but Anna refuses to talk about any part of her past in Germany.  Trudy thus decides to take on a project of interviewing German immigrants who lived through the war and in surviving, possibly ignored the actions that Nazis were taking against the Jews.  Through Anna, the reader flashes back to her hometown of Weimar where she managed to survive starvation and certain death by entering into an abusive and torrid affair with a high-ranking Nazi officer at Buchenwald. 

I liked this book, probably more after I finished it and reflected on it rather than while I was reading it.  (While reading, I would have given it 3.5 stars.)The concept was an interesting one: Intertwining the stories of anti-Semitic German immigrants with those of the German survivors who only did what they had to do to live through the war.  How fine a line is there between the two?  It makes you ask yourself the question:  How far would you go to save those you love.  The novel was a slow read and it wasn't until the end that I really felt a need and a want to see what the outcome was.  The end was certainly worth it, however, and the answers to questions I thought would not be given, in the end were.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

So my latest is another Holocaust novel with a certain twist:


In Paris on July 16, 1942 there was a huge roundup and eventual deportation of thousands of Jewish families. Because many of the men were in hiding at the time, most of those arrested were women and children. The call was for all children under the age of 16 and their parents. These families were held for a time at the Vélodrome d'Hiver (Or Vel d'Hiv as it was called - a stadium that held bike races) outside the city and eventually transported to Auschwitz (no person deported was been found to have lived). In the end, over 13,000 people were sent to their deaths, 44% being women and 31% children. Of course this was another horrible atrocity related to the Holocaust but what made it even worse was those who carried out the arrests and deportations were French police, not Nazi soldiers. To further the horror, the French have historically ignored that this happened, that they were a part of such murders and in fact blamed their actions on the Nazis occupying their country at the time. They have taken no responsibility.

In Sarah's Key, the reader goes back and forth between the two main characters, forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond living in present day 2002 and 10-year-old Sarah living in 1942. Julia is American by birth and moved to Paris when she was 20. She works for an American magazine and is given the assignment of covering the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. She soon learns that the apartment she and her husband plan to move into was acquired by his family when its Jewish occupants were arrested and deported 60 years before. Sarah is one of the children who called that apartment home. She is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. What follows is the story of what her life was like until she died as well as Julia's discovery of the facts.

I'm fascinated by the Holocaust and have read many books dealing with those who suffered because of it. This was a story I had never heard and was completely ignorant of. I was entranced and horrified. I hate to say I "loved" this book because how can you love something that tells such a horrible tale so I'll just say that it was amazing. The writing was great, the story was heart-breaking and real and different and I recommend this to everyone. These unknown atrocities are the types of stories that must come out and everyone must read in order for these things to never happen again.

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

I'm now on to a piece of non-fiction dealing with the Holocaust. This one is about Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina. Together, with the help of their son they sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in the empty animal cages and sheds of their zoo. Diane Ackerman has used Antonina's diary to assist in creating this book. It sounds pretty amazing and has gotten great reviews. I'm always fascinated too by the people who stood up to Nazi hatred during the Holocaust and tried to do the right thing. I'll let you know.

Update:  I finished the Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. It was really good. It definitely read more like a novel than a non-fiction WWII/Holocaust book. There were certainly parts of this book that were unbelievable and heartbreaking but for the most part it was a book about an amazing woman's courage in a time of complete chaos. It focused on Antonina, her husband Jan and son Rhys all who risked their lives during WWII to house hundreds of refugees on the run. They did this by housing them in their home located on the grounds of the Moscow zoo as well as hiding them in the cages and underground passageways. It was an amazing story. Definitely recommended

The Reader by Bernard Schlink

So today I started and finished reading The Reader. (I'm not a speed reader, it's just a really quick read and not long at all). And by the way, this is the book made into the movie currently showing with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Anyway, it's a tale about Michael Berg who at 15 begins an obsessive affair with Hanna, a mysterious older woman. He never learns very much about her, and as quickly as she came into his life, she one day disappears with Michael believing he'll never see her again. To his horror, however, he chances upon her while she's on trial for committing horrible crimes at a Nazi concentration camp during WWII. What follows is Michael's attempt to comprehend and accept not only his past but his generations. This is not a Holocaust novel but rather the struggle that Michael faces in the aftermath of the Holocaust and what to do with the guilt he and his generation feel for being German and thus a part of such a past. Definitely recommended. Interesting, compelling, dark and sad.