world literature

The difference is that this novel is told from the perspectives of both a "good German" and a survivor's child. The intertwining of the two tales is remarkable. Other strong pluses are the portrayal of life in a frozen Minnesota landscape, as well as the totally realistic explorations of the complex role which having the upper hand plays in relationships between lovers and between parent and child. A most satisfying ending is also rare these days!

This is a book to own, cherish, and reread.

Those Who Save Us was one of the most riveting books I've ever read. The characters are vividly drawn, believable, and most of all, compelling. For those who haven't read the novel yet, its cover illustration and blurb might lend one to suspect that it's a book about the holocaust. For me, the holocaust was incidental and a mere backdrop to what unfolded as a story about shame. As a physician, I understand how devastating the feeling of shame can be for a person, and through Ms. Jenna Blum's heart-wrenching and beautifully written prose, I have gained a deeper appreciation for its tragic consequences to the human soul. I couldn't put it down. In addition to friends and family, I am highly recommending Those Who Save Us for my colleagues in medicine, who will be reminded that humans are more than just two-dimensional beings, and until one's skin is peeled layer by layer, the guilt and shame that rest deep within the heart may remain forever hidden.

This is a truly terrific novel, one that weaves new definitions of victim and guilt into the familiarly horrific landscape of Nazi Germany.

Alternating between Weimar, Germany in the early days of World War II and the present day mid-American panorama of Minnesota, Jenna Blum gives us a vivid, though tortuous picture of the conflicts presented to Anna as she struggles to make sense of Third Reich atrocities against the Jews, and their insensitivity to the everyday hardships of non-Jewish German civilians.

As difficult a time as this is for Anna, a young woman who finds dangerous love in the person of Max, a Jewish veternarian, whom she hides from the SS in the home that she shares with her father, her situation is complicated by the discovery and incarceration of Max in the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the subsequent birth of Trudie, her daughter with Max.

The devasting emotional consequences that arise from Anna's having to choose between the safety of herself and her daughter, and the acquiesance to the constant, and often brutal, advances of the Obersturmfuher of Buchenwald are detailed with frightening detail that ultimately leads Anna, many years later, to conclude that "we come to love those who save us". Equally striking is the eventual realization by Trudie, through a combination of years spent doggedly pursuing the truths of this era and plain luck, of the true nature of her monthers distant deportment over the years since their migration to America.

This is a novel that reads like reality, and a "must read".