This Holocaust novel is quite different from others I have read. It is difficult because of its almost sympathetic view of an SS officer who saves a young woman and her daughter (born out of wedlock - and the father was Jewish). He is a brute - that is quite clear, but there are passages that paint a human picture of him and his fears, insecurities, and frailties. But at the heart of the novel are the two women, Anna, the mother, and her daughter Trudie, who live because the SS officer takes Anna as his mistress and rather than fight it, Anna accepts the situation to save her daughter. She also aids the Resistance, through her association with a baker woman, who supplies the Nazis with baked goods and bread, while gaining access to the camps in order to assist the prisoners. Both women, mother and daughter, are so damaged and the novel charts their journey from Weimer to Minneapolis and the course their lives take and their quest to make sense of it. Anna, tries to obliterate her past and shield her daughter from the trauma, while Trudie needs to understand what happened in order to make sense of who she is.
Trudie is a history professor and takes on a Rememberance Project, wherein she interviews Germans who lived during the war. she gives them the opportunity to talk about what happened and in a way, relieve themselves of the guilt associated with the Holocaust. Through these interviews she meets Ranier, a Jew, who tricks her in a way, by responding to her quest to find Germans willing to tell their stories, and then he tells his tragic and heart wrenching story. This devastates Trudie but she seeks his forgiveness and he and she get involved in a brief, but deep relationship.
The story wraps up in a neat way - almost too neat - but I enjoyed the ending and the ultimate "resolution" of the mother-daughter conflict.
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