TOW #8 - "The Nazi Officer's Wife" (Part 2)

After sharing information about Edith's (Grete's) life during the war, her experiences before the war began to slowly shine through as the book went on. Since her outstanding knowledge and study skills were so rare, she was asked to go to university in Austria, and later kicked out because of her religion. Then, the Nazis invaded Austria and things went from bad to worse. Her family was forced to move to a ghetto but Edith managed to escape. With everyone she loved separated from her, Edith felt alone until she met a man she fell in love with, and a woman who was able to give her fake documentation. These "Aryan papers" allowed her to live in Germany and be "safe" from everything that was happening to her people. Edith Hahn Beer's attempt at imagery and powerful descriptions led to an incredible amount of tension that I'm sure echoed her real life experience. This tension made this novel so easy to get through, and the fact that it is all non-fiction made me feel an emotional attachment to it. Also, the tension created an eerie atmosphere that made the reader question everyone, and see what happened next. It also made it really hard to read it because the whole time I was scared that something bad would happen to Edith, even though I knew everything worked out for her in the end. At first I thought the purpose was to share the other side of the people that were affected by the Holocaust and World War II, but now I think that she wrote this book purely to share how everyone's situation might have been different, but everyone was united in their struggles. She talks of other Jews and their experience, but also of the Germans struggling because of the war efforts. They were poor and had to give everything to benefit the war, and even though it was a different kind of suffering, I think she wanted to emphasize that no one was immune to it. Her effort made it easy for her to achieve this purpose, and made the reader sympathize for her as well as the lesser-known sufferers of this World War.