Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman studying law in Vienna when the Gestapo forced Edith and her mother into a ghetto, issuing them papers branded with a "J." Soon, Edith was taken away to a labor camp, and though she convinced Nazi officials to spare her mother, when she returned home, her mother had been deported. Knowing she would become a hunted woman, Edith tore the yellow star from her clothing and went underground, scavenging for food and searching each night for a safe place to sleep. Her boyfriend, Pepi, proved too terrified to help her, but a Christian friend was not: With the woman's identity papers in hand, Edith fled to Munich. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who fell in love with her. And despite her protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity secret. My Review
As I was reading this book, I was able to imagine her sitting at the kitchen table telling me her story. Due to the subject matter and time in history, some of the story contains situations that some could not imagine. I am always amazed at both the desperation and humanity that people found during their times in either work or concentration camps. It is very hard to look back at that time in history and wonder why more was not done to help those being persecuted but I have to remember that I am looking back in time with the knowledge of today. It also reminds me how we can easily slip back into the mindset that let the persecution happen. (Off my soapbox now). There is some language but honestly, I think 99% of the books I have read about the concentration camps has had some. I like reading about survivors of the Holocaust and learning their stories. This book was very interesting and I very much enjoyed reading it.
Hope you do too.....
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