A different perspective on the Holocaust

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ldykstra Avatar

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I won a copy of The German House from @bookishhq and I was so excited to receive that I started it almost immediately. Set during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials in the 1960s in West Germany, the story follows Eva, a German woman in her twenties who works as a translator. She is brought into the trial because of her ability to speak Polish. Through the different characters, we see the ways in which Germans dealt with the aftermath of the Holocaust, from denial to complete ignorance. Eva was a young child during WWII and starts the book not really understanding the depth of the atrocities committed in the camps. Through the events of the trial, Eva begins to uncover the dark secrets of her country’s and family’s past during the war.

The author of the book has written a lot for television and you can really see that influence in the way that the book switches between different POVs. Mid-paragraph, you switch from one character to the next without much warning. This was hard to follow at first but kind of cool once I got used to it.

I found Eva’s ignorance about the events of the Holocaust surprising but realistic of a lot of people who were children during the war. I also appreciated how, according to the notes in the back of the book, much of the dialogue during the trial itself was direct quotations from the real transcripts. This lent a layer of authenticity to the story, while also making the trial scenes that much more heartbreaking. What I did not like was the character of Jurgen, her boyfriend, who really just seemed like an awful person not matter how many excuses we were given for his actions.

Though presented as a bit of a mystery, of Eva uncovering her family’s past, the real story here is the evolution of her character from a naive young adult to a woman full in grasp of her past and personality. I greatly enjoyed this look at a time in Germany’s past that doesn’t get as much attention.

Thanks HarperVia for the advanced copy. Out in the US on December 3!