The Nazi Officer's Wife, by Edith Hahn Beer (1999)
This is a memoir by a young Jewish woman whose family was from Vienna, Austria, when the Gestapo forced her into a labor camp in the early 1940s. When she returned to Vienna, she went underground. A Christian friend helped her by letting her use "lost" identity papers, thus emerging in Munich as Grete Denner. She met Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who fell in love with her. She eventually tells him her secret ~ that she is really Jewish. He was not concerned and the two married after his divorce to his first wife became final. Werner had a violent temper and expected his wife to keep their apartment spotless, have dinner ready and be available to him on demand. Edith readily agreed and adapted to this life to protect her life.
She eventually has a daughter. Werner wanted a son and is a distant parent. Eventually, he was drafted and sent to the Eastern front. He became a Russian prisoner of war.
After the war ended, Edith was able to return to her real identity and procured a job as a judge in Germany. (She had gone to law school, but was not awarded a degree because she was Jewish. After the war, she was able to get her credentials and practice law). She begged the Russians to assist in getting her husband home from the prison camp. He was thus able to be released, but was unable to adjust to an "overeducated" wife with a well-paying job. He was violent with her and she eventually divorced him.
The book was an interesting slice of life and survival, but was not particularly well written.
3 Stars
Read: December 22, 2015
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