Those Who Save Us | Jenna Blum

Those Who Save Us | Jenna Blum | A beautiful, sad book

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Those Who Save Us

	Those Who Save Us Jenna Blum Adult, 2005 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 99 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fantastic

Those Who Save Us was gripping and page turning. I could not put it down. I love novels that jump between two seperate people telling stories that are intertwined and that is exactly what this book is.

A beautiful, sad book

Those who save Us caught me right from the start. World War II fascinates me- esp. the Holocaust and the Nazi regime. This book tells the story of Anna, a young woman who becomes a Nazi officer's mistress to save her daughter. This book made me cry- it made me so angry when people judged her! The novel doesn't have qoutetation marks, which at first set me off, but after reading the book I think it didn't need them. Without qoutetation marks, the story takes on a quaint, sepia feel. Jenna Blum did a wonderful job and I hope she writes something new soon!

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I am glad I read this

I bought this book on a whim so I could have enough to qualify for free shipping with another book order. I am glad I did. I was moved by the story of a German woman and her daughter and their struggle to survive during the war, living in a bakery situated near Buchenwald. I liked how the author wove the tale of their past with their present day life in America, and that it was told from the German perspective. I think this story was meant to convey the idea that one of the main characters, Anna, was not an enabler of Nazi war crimes, nor was she unsympathetic to the plight of the Jewish (as she did all she could to help them), but her main concern was her daughter's survival, and was willing to do anything to ensure it, even though she had to live with the guilt of it later in her life. It was a guilt was so overwhelming that she refused to speak about it after the war. I found it interesting that the author called her silence an inviolable right, even though her daughter had a similar right to know the truth. It took me about halfway through the book to realize what the title meant, but some may realize sooner. There is one incredulous moment near the end of the book, where the other main character Trudie *spoiler alert* comes to find out about her true lineage. It just seemed too convenient, but aside from that I thoroughly loved this book and would read it again as well as recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading about WWII or the Holocaust. There are several extremely sad accounts of atrocities committed by Nazis that sounded like they could have been inspired by true events. This is definitely a page turner IMO.

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great read, dissapointing ending

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is literary yet at the same time a page-turner, and about halfway through the book I began thinking it might quite possibly be a favorite. The plot was engaging, the characters compelling, and the themes incredibly important. I applaud Jenna Blum's courage to approach such a sensitive subject with such an unconventional edge. Every few pages I had to stop reading to think. She is truly not affraid to delve into the "gray" area of the Holocaust instead of leaving it black and white as many would prefer, which I think is important. I also liked her ommitance of quotations, I found that this creative technique served its purpose of keeping the reader engaged in the plot.
With that said, I must say I was dissapointed when everything finally came together in the end. The reader waits and waits for Trudie to find out that her father was not in fact the monster she thinks he was, but rather a Jew that her mother truly loved, and that her mother was not an apathetic German like she fears but rather a young woman with outstanding courage but who was forced to make decisions that are difficult for the average person to even comprehend. From about page 200 on, each time the plot shifted back to present I would get excited, thinking, "she will find something this time." But instead of Trudie finding lead after lead, it all came together for her at once, which was fine, but it all happened in about 5 pages. As I was reading, I thought "Oh know, there are not enough pages left for all of these things I've been waiting for to happen." I wanted to know more about how Trudy felt, I wanted at least something from Anna. In fact, I didn't see anywhere where Mr. Pheffer even told Trudy that her father was a Jew, which I think was important. I also would have liked to see something happen with Trudy and her cameraman. I just felt like the ending was unfair. I understood the significance of the brevity, but I felt like the reader deserved more. I had such a thirst for a great ending and it felt like at the end I was offered a short steady stream before I realized the spicket was turned off.

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Those Who Save Us

"Those Who Save Us" is another in a line of historical fiction that provides American readers the opportunity to feel morally superior to the Germans defeated in the Second World War. In this instance, the observation is about German women and their relations with Nazi officers and the Jewish race.

Jenna Blum beautifully writes about a German woman, who hides and is impregnanted by a Jewish physician. The story is split between this woman caught in Wiemar throughout the war, and the daughter who resulted from her Jewish physician and her modern existence. Needless to say, the physician is found and sent to a nearby concentration camp. Eventually, the German mother prostitutes herself to a high-ranking SS officer for the benefit of her daughter.

For the remainder of the war, she continues in her role. After the war, she moves to America as a war bride and proceeds to punish herself, her American husband, and her daughter for all that she had done. In the meanwhile, her daughter struggles to find an appropriate sense of self due to her mother's vaunted culpability. As an historian, she attempts this by interviewing Germans about their war experiences. In the end, we are informed that the average German took advantage of their Jewish neighbors, acted as prostitutes for the German army, and disowned any moral culpability by means of puerile self-denial.

While I might disagree with the overarching anti-Germanic tone of this novel, I will add that it was generally well-crafted. For the sake of classroom discussion, it might find itself read against the backdrop of a reasonable historiography of what the life of an average German was really like during the war.

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