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Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

This is one of those books that make you go, "Wow." And I did go, "Wow," when I put it down. Blum takes an enormous risk writing from the German perspective of the Holocaust, but it's a much needed risk. It's amazing how people still frown down on all Germans involved in the Holocaust, how persecuted and hated they became once WWII was over.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the actions of the German's who openly participated in this senseless genocide. More...

3 comments like (31 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2007

Lorna rated it:

Ugh. What a terrible and yet compelling book. It's the oddest thing. I swung back and forth between giving it one star and giving it four. I chose one because overall it was terribly clunky and awkward. I felt as though the story was in the hands of an amateur who botched up too much to make the overall experience enjoyable. Or, as if the struggle to write was too obvious: here are only a few of my complaints:

* Mixed metaphors
"The arctic are is like shards of glass in the More...

6 comments like (38 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2007

Collette rated it:

I was drawn to this book because of the subject matter, having understood that for many women (Jews and Germans both) staying alive really meant doing whatever it took to survive the dangers of wartime in Germany. A riveting story -- and I'm sure that the themes of love and survival were all too common during the war. Be prepared to read some harrowing, brutal passages although if you have read any other graphic accounts of the Holocaust (ficiton or nonfiction) this may not be shocking. I also More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2008

Jeanie rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Quite engrossing. A definite page turner and one that I felt I couldn't put down & would stay up to the wee-hours reading. :-)

The imagery was unreal as well. Everything that was described, I could picture/envision. This book was a difficult topic, but the style of writing was easy to comprehend.

So many WWII books deal with stories and tragedies of the Jews (as they should); however, this book, told the story of the sacrifices and More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jun 07, 2009

MaryTank rated it:

Well written, fast read. I have often wondered how and why the German people accepted what was happening during WWII? This book describes how many, if not most, were just trying to survive during difficult times. However others truly believed in what was happening which is called patriotism regardless the right or wrong of it.

Contrary to my book club I do not believe Anna fell in love with the Oberstrumfuhrer. I believe she was a victim of the trauma caused by her dependency on More...

1 comment like (12 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2007

Lucy rated it:

Those Who Save Us, written by Jenna Blum, is an historical fiction novel set in Germany during World War II. Anna is an eighteen year old girl who falls in love with a Jewish doctor and finds the courage to finally stand up to her domineering father, a Nazi sympathizer and altogether unkind man, and hide her lover in her own home. When her father turns him over to the Gestapo, Anna leaves and lives and works with a woman who works with the Resistance Movement. Anna, pregnant and alone, is ultima More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2011

Barbara rated it:

While visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, one encounters many horrifying exhibits. There is an huge atrium, with a ceiling which seems endlessly tall. Around this room, covering all of the wall surfaces, there are photographs. There are happy families posing for group photos, babies with their toothless grins, little girls with pigtails, boys flying kites, sober individual shots for graduations, little men at their Bar Mitzvahs,loving couples gazing into eachother's eyes - all peop More...

10 comments like (9 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2008

Kelly rated it:

This was a very well written book about Nazi Germany told from the perspective of non-Jews who survived the war. I had never really considered what was happening to the non-Jews in Germany during that time, so in this regard I found it to be very educational. The book is told from the points of view of Anna, a mother, and Trudy, her very young daughter who both endured more than is imaginable a the hands of the Nazis. Anna's story is revealed in flashbacks while Trudy's is told in the present More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 18, 2008

Brian rated it:

How good was this book? So good I want to tell everyone about it, which in turn caused me to remember I joined this site but never posted on it because I hadn't been motivated until now.

Anna is a young woman living in 1940s Germany who becomes involved in a relationship with a Jewish doctor -- you can guess without me having to say anything the far-reaching consequences this will have, and it sets into motion all that follows.

Fifty years later her daughter Trudy, a professor More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2007

AriAnne rated it:

This book was phenomenal. I couldn't put it down! It is an amazing blend of the German/Jewish experience during WWII, at least from an outsider's point of view, which is how the book is set up. Trudy, the main character, is a peripheral part of the experience in that she was only 3 when she left Germany, and yet she is so integral to the telling of her mother's story, which is also her story. She grew up thinking she was something other that who she is and her mother is trying to protect her More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

May 30, 2008

Leslie rated it:

Wow! This book kept me up at night, thinking about the topics it explores. While on the surface it is about German people's experiences during WWII, it is about so much more, including the psychological effects of abuse and humiliation. My favorite line comes near the end when Anna's husband asks her if she loved the SS officer. She recognizes how we "come to love those who save us, or rather those who shame us." That's a pretty intense concept.

My only complaint is that the More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2010

Kristina rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

8 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 03, 2008

Peggy rated it:

A real page turner. Excellent writing style full of description, narrative, imagery. Author made you care about the main character and all she endured during her days in WWII Germany living as a non Jew. Brutal, sad times. Confirms that one must do what one mjust do to survive.

Good Read !

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Cheryl rated it:

This book was phenomenal! It tells the story of 2 women, a mother and daughter, and their relationship. Trudy, a professor at a university, is conducting research into the role of German women in Nazi Germany. Her mother's health is failing and she is put into a nursing home for a time. Trudy tries to understand her mother, Anna, but her mother refuses to talk to her. There is a second story line throughout that tells of the mother's life when she was in her early twenties,living in Weimar, Ge More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2008

Cass rated it:

All throughout this book, I went, "Whoa," over and over and over. I personally think Trudy's part of the story and Anna's part in present day is a little tedious, but all of Anna's past was one spell-binder of a delicious WWII read. I love how beautifully Blum explores the dangers of Stockholm Syndrome, and how tastefully she brings it to life. It is one amazing book, and it's just... wow. It's no light-hearted read, get that straight right now. It's very dark and the ending can be vie More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 12, 2008

Devorah rated it:

Totally and completely engrossing.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Susan rated it:

My second time through Jenna Blum's historical novel of the Holocaust. It's the story of Anna, born in Weimar near the Buchenwald concentration camp, who falls in love with a Jewish doctor and bears his child after he is taken to the camp. One of the camp's commanders, the Obersturmfuhrer, takes her "under his wing," providing food and "education" for her daughter Trudy, as well as rendering Anna his prisoner for sexual "pleasure." Although Horst is an amoral monste More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2008

Emily rated it:

Very engaging story, I highly recommend this book.

Usually I'm not a fan of following two "complementary" story lines because one always ends up being more interesting and rarely are they both equally important to the story. This book has neither of those problems. The two story lines in Those Who Save Us are beautifully intertwined, neither story would be complete without the other and both stories are equally weighted, so you always want more from both women.

More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 03, 2008

Andrea rated it:

A great book - one of the best books that I have read in a while! It's a fascinating story (I found I couldn't put it down), a sad story, a heroic story of surviving in WWII Germany as a civilian although a bit unbelievable. Still, it was a story that I wanted to believe in and I'm sure there are untold stories out there that may never be told.

Blum does a good job of portraying life for German civilians while still being incredibly aware and sympathetic to the treatment of Jews in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 11, 2009

Elysabeth rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2008

Khaya rated it:

This book was well-written and interesting, if a bit intense. Another holocaust-from-the-perspective-of-resistant-Germans, a la "The Book Thief," but less lighthearted.

The story alternates between two stories. One is of Anna, a young 1940s German woman with an illegitimate child (fathered by a Jew she loves, who was captured during her pregnancy). Anna becomes active in the German resistance and is caught sneaking food to Buchenwald prisoners, an offense punishable by de More...

0 comments like

Mar 09, 2008

Carrie rated it:

Rating: 4.10

Well, after my recent trip to the heart of Deutchland, I am a bit overwhelmed with the desire to read WWII accounts. It is amazing to me that the scope of human emotion, tragedy and courage was felt on such a grand scale by all that lived during that time.... and in many cases, are the grey generation of today. I sat down this morning, and moved rarely... until i had finished the book in one sitting.

This book of fiction is written by a former producer for Stev More...

0 comments like

Jan 26, 2008

Cortney rated it:

Those Who Save Us is the story of an Aryan German girl (probably 18 or 19 years old) named Anna who fell in love with a Jewish doctor around 1939. She hid him in her father's house when things started to get scary for the Jews. Her father found out and turned him in to the Gestapo. At this point in time, she was already 4 months pregnant. The Jewish doctor was part of the Resistance Movement, as was a female baker in town. The girl left her father's home and became the baker's apprentice. Eventu More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 02, 2011

Kristie rated it:

This was a good book. There were style points that prevented me from giving it five stars -- I'm not sure why the author chose not to use quotes throughout -- but it was an engaging read and very thought provoking. We all probably consider what we would have done if we had been alive during certain points in history, and this book tells of people's choices before, during, and after the war. It's fiction, of course, but it's possible for the reader to see how the characters might mirror the stori More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

Kellie rated it:

Wow! This book will stay with me for a long time. The story angle is unique and the writing was beautiful. There have been many books written about the Holocaust, but I don’t think that many have been written from the viewpoint of a German woman who lived through WWII as the enemy. Not as a Nazi, but as a German citizen who had to cope with the knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of all that was happening around her.

The author takes you back and forth between Anna’s story during th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2008

Tina rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like

Mar 13, 2009

Amber rated it:

This is now one of my top favs. I just finished it, and I feel like I am still "in" it. Such a good story of how we can go through our lives not understanding what reality has been for another. And also, how we keep secrets for so many reasons, when if we could only speak we could release ourselves, and people we love... Wonderful book. Wonderfully told.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Kate rated it:

This hauntingly lovely book is the best I’ve read in a long time.

It’s the story of Anna, a German caught up in the firestorm of Nazi Weimar and her daughter, Trudy. Anna’s selfless acts of kindness and her accompanying shame were well executed – believable and haunting.

Trudy’s own story is well marked by a life she can barely remember.

This Holocaust epic told from the German point of view gave what is for me well worn – the Holocaust – a fresh slant.

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 03, 2008

Lorrie rated it:

Anna survives during WWII in Germany by doing what she needs to do in order to live and provide food for her young daughter, Trudy. After the war they move to America with a soldier and she tries to forget. Trudy grows up and tries to find out the truth about her memories of an SS officer. Anna still won't open up even after being faced with a survivor that can tell stories of the amazing things that Anna did to save lives. Instead, Anna can't get past the guilt of her association with the of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 12, 2009

Sherri aka SDMomChef rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I usually hesitate to read books about the holocaust because the holocaust is so incredibly sad and depressing. However, there are books, such as The Book Thief, that are so adept at telling the story in such a way that the events become more complex and human that I am left feeling more enlightened after reading the book.

What I think makes this book so unique is that it is primarily about the story of Anna and her daughter, both during WWII More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

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