Over the course of time that I have been reviewing books, Those Who Save Us I would have to rank as number one–top of my list. Author Jenna Blum has touched upon a subject that is extremely delicate, particularly for those of us who lived during the ghastly days of World War II. I was just a young boy then, but old enough to remember!
To begin with, Blum’s writing style is often blunt yet expressive of the terrible mental scars incurred by the survivors of that war—particularly women. Jewish women were sent off to prison camps along with their husbands and children, only to be gassed and then burned in an effort to eliminate any trace of a Jewish population. The absolute horrors of their holocaust we need not dwell on here.
But what about German women who were caught up in Hitler’s madness; who could not leave the country; who did not believe in his insane Third Reich? That was the plight of Anna in Those Who Save Us. Realizing from the start, especially after Krystallnacht that her Jewish friends and neighbors were disappearing, Anna attempts to hide a Jewish man she has fallen in love with. She is carrying his child.
Anna lives in an ancient house replete with nooks and crannies that have sat vacant, collecting dust for many years. This spirited German woman conceals her lover in a narrow closed-off secret stairway meant for servants. Incredibly, Anna’s own father, a satanic believer in Hitler’s new Germany that will last 1000 years, discovers Anna’s hidden lover and the SS escort him off to a labor camp.
Because of her complicity in hiding a Jew, Anna’s hateful manic father will also turn in his own daughter to German authorities except that she has already stolen away to hide in the basement of another courageous German woman, a renowned baker. It is in her bakery that Anna delivers her daughter Trudy into the world. As a half Jew, the tiny infant will be slaughtered when discovered.
Very carefully, Anna begins working beside the trusted German baker. As a beautiful young woman, Anna is singled out by a high ranking German officer who weekly visits the bakery. For fear of reprisal against herself and her daughter, Anna beds down with this disgusting GermanObersturmfuhrer. (I could not find the rank of this officer.)
In fact, she gives up her body weekly. She learns from this egotistical man of the incredible atrocities being committed against Jews. She knows they are being exterminated through the chimneys of prison camps. She learns that the man she loves is being slave driven in a work camp in the hill country not far from the bakeshop. With the baker’s aid, Anna becomes part of the underground, exchanging baked goods and messages with the dying prisoners in the work camp.
And it is here that I will leave the reader, deep in German held territory, where Anna continues her perilous life with the German officer while working with the underground. At this point, the war is lost. German soldiers and officers know it; but because of their deadly fear of Hitler and his entrenched loyal SS, they must fight to the death.
What will happen to Anna and young Trudy as Germany collapses around them? Will she be held culpable with other Germans by American troops that storm the city? Must she file past the mounds of dead and decaying Jewish bodies like other German civilians? Must she take her turn at burying the rotting corpses? And what is the ultimate fate of her first love, Trudy’s real father?
As a reviewer, Those Who Save Ushaunts me–I mean it really troubles me. What would I have done either singly or as part of an underground to halt the monstrous German murdering machine? Would I have somehow acted differently than Anna or would I have played out my role like she did to spare little Trudy and her own life? This is not a book for the feint hearted. It is an unforgettable tale of unconscionable savagery. It is a story ultimately coupled with remote hope and abiding love.
