Those Who Save Us

Those Who Save Us

By: Jenna Blum

FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS


What they say:

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 Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and 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.

 

What I have to say:

I am German. It actually took me many years to be okay with that. I know, at this age no one really cares… but really there are those that still do. It was very refreshing to read a book that took the German stand point. I know what my Grandparents went through, I have heard their stories. It is a hard truth to swallow, the hate, the fear, the terror, the un-known. This book brings to life what really had to be done to save one’s life from the side that you don’t always hear.

The book was great for these reasons:

-The way the story brought to life the horrible things that had to be done to push through.

-The German side.

-The German side that you don’t want to hear.

-An ending that you aren’t able to guess.