Books Set in Europe: France

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah (2015)

The Nightingale is the story of two French sisters who, each in her own way, survive the Nazi occupation of France during World War II.  The sisters are 10 years apart in age, and are motherless with a cold father who was a changed man after returning from World War I.

Vianne, the older sister, married young to the love of her life.  Her younger sister, Isabelle, was impetuous, and had been expelled from several boarding schools before the War began.  After Vianne’s husband goes off to war, Vianne is left at the family home with their young daughter.  Isabelle’s childhood heroine was Edith Cavell, who was executed in World War I.  Isabelle wants to follow in Cavell’s footsteps and joins a Resistance group, leading downed British and American soldiers cross the Pyrenees from France into Spain.  Her code name is The Nightingale, which also happens to be the English translation of their family surname ~ Rossignol.

This novel focuses on the lives of the women during the war and the sacrifices they were forced to make while their fathers, husbands and brothers were fighting.  The novel begins in 1939, just before Nazi occupation.  As France is forced into War, the Nazis begin rationing food and occupying homes.  A young German officer requisitions her home, although he is kind to Vianne and her daughter.  One day Vianne is asked to provide the names of the Jews in her town.  Believing that it is simply a list of names, she complies, giving up the name of her best friend and neighbor, Rachel.  Later, the Nazis begin rounding up all the Jews and communists.  Rachel is taken away, but Vianne takes her young son to raise as her own.

Later a brutal SS officer commanders her home and brutally rapes her.  Meanwhile, Isabelle is risking her life in the Resistance.  She acquires false papers and becomes known as Juliette Gervaise.  She doesn’t fully understand the risk she is taking until after she is capture.  She is ultimately sent to a German concentration camp, where her mantra become “Stay alive.”

This book gives the horrors of war and captures the terror of the citizens of France.  It is one of the best novels of the Holocaust that I have read in a long time.

5 Stars

Read:  February 14, 2016

Books Set in a Global Environment

The Billionaire's Vinegar, by Benjamin Wallace


Read: February 2, 2011 (Second Reading)

Books Set in the United States: Maryland

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)


Read: January 30, 2011

Books Set in the Caribbean: Cuba

Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, by Carlos Eire (2003)

Shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962, Operation Petro Pan airlifted 14,000 children from Cuba. Their parents were to follow them soon after. Carlos Eire, along with his older brother, were two of the children in Pedro Pan. Carlos was 12 years old. It was several years before his mother was able to leave Cuba and join her sons. His father never left his beloved Cuba.

Until that day when he suddenly found himself alone in Miami, he was a child of privilege. His father was a wealthy Cuban judge. His family was among the elite. His father was convinced that he was Louis XVI in a past life and that his wife was Marie Antoinette. He and his brother ran around Havana terrorizing lizards by various means of boyhood antics.

In January 1959, Batista was removed from power and replaced by a young Fidel Castro. Life had changed overnight. Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire were heard on a regular basis.

Waiting for Snow in Havana is Eire's childhood's memories of a simpler time ~ a time when a young boy could be a young boy with no cares in the world. Eire remembers life with his eccentric father. He recalls the boy his father brings into the family house and adopts, the boy whose main objective is to terrorize Eire. He recalls his father's collection of porcelain figurines. His father's love for his collections was so strong, that he chose to remain in Cuba rather than follow his family to America.

Eire recently wrote a sequel, Learning to Die in Miami, which picks up with his memories of his early life and struggles in America. I look forward to reading it.

Carlos Eire is currently a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University. I would love to have the opportunity to take a class with him.


Read: January 12, 2011

Books Set in Europe: Germany

Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada (1947; English Translation 2009)

If you read only one book this year, that book should be Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada. It was originally published in Germany in 1947, but was recently translated and published in English. Every Man Dies Alone is the best book I have read in a long, long time.

The novel was based on a true story of a couple who quietly, but tragically tried to object to Hitler’s regime. The setting is Berlin in early 1941. Otto and Anna Quangel were a quiet middle-aged couple who lived a solitary live. Anna was a housewife and Otto was a furniture factory foreman. Their son and only child was sent off to fight. When the Quangels learn that their son, also named Otto, was killed, they decide to devise a campaign to protest the war, even though they know if they are caught, it will cost them their lives.

The Quangels lived in an apartment building, but they keep to themselves. Other residents of their building include an elderly Jewish woman, a judge who is sympathetic to the Jews, and a low-class Nazi family. The judge does what he can to protect the elderly Jewish woman, although she finds her confinement in his apartment too restrictive. The Nazi family continually enters her apartment to steal her meager belongings. The descriptions of the Quangels neighbors helps to set the scene of the Berlin environment during this period of the war.

Until the death of his son, Otto was non-political. He was not a member of the Nazi Party, which limited his job opportunities, however, he was satisfied being foreman at the factory. As the war deteriorated for the Germans, the factory switched from making furniture to coffins.

After his son’s death, Otto got the idea of writing postcards with containing anti-Nazi sentiments and leaving them around town. When Anna learns of his plan, she initially protests, but then decides to join him in his quiet protest. Each week, Otto and Anna begin dropping their postcards throughout the city. In their quiet way, Otto and Anna are fighting back. Their first card simply read: Mother! The Führer has murdered my son. Mother! The Führer will murder your sons too, he will not stop till he has brought sorrow to every home in the world!

Unknown to Otto and Anna, however, when the postcards are found, they are immediately reported to the Gestapo. Finders of the postcards realize that holding such inflammatory statements places them at risk.

Inspector Escherich is charged with finding the writer of the postcards. In his methodical way he traces where the postcards are located and develops a profile of the writer. Escherich knows that if he fails to find the postcard writer, his own life is in peril, as his boss is a violent Nazi officer who enjoys harming and humiliating.

The real-life Otto and Anna Quangle were Otto and his wife Elsie Hampel. After Elise’s brother was killed in the war, she and her husband began their own postcard campaign. They continued dropping their postcards for two years before they were caught and sentenced to death. Like Otto and Anna, the bulk of their cards were immediately turned over to the Gestapo.

The author, Hans Fallada is an interesting individual in his own right. He apparently wrote Every Man Dies Alone in 24 days after being given a copy of the Hampel’s Gestapo files. Hans Fallada was the pen name for Rudolf Ditzen, a psychologically damaged German writer. As a young man, Fallada and a friend had entered into a suicide pact, whereby each was to fight a duel. The friend was killed, but Fallada was merely injured. The case was quite sensational, hence, when he began to write, he was encouraged to write under a pseudonym.

Every Man Dies Alone is a great testimony to the righteous Germans who protested Hitler’s Germany. The English translation captures the mode of Berlin during this tragic period of German history.


Read: December 24, 2010