4/5 review by book blogger Nicole of my book, Lorna versus Laura
Tag: world war 2
Review of The Austrian: A War Criminal’s Story (Book 1) by Ellie Midwood
The title of this book alone is a hook, at least for me. World War II is, after all, one of the most important events in recent history, filled with some of the greatest atrocities ever committed against our fellow humans.
It’s easy to root for those who were persecuted and the Allies who ended the war, but what about the Axis powers? They were people, too.
After the fall of the Nazi Reich, many of the former leaders were brought to trial and convicted of war crimes. What would be going through a war criminal’s head? Regret for what he’d done to others, regret for getting caught? Anger and hatred toward those judging him? Fear that the end of his own life was coming? Or something more?
The Austrian: A War Criminal’s Story explores such questions with vivid, often heartbreaking detail, so much so that I sympathized with the man who this story is about. In the end, he is still just a man who has known love and hate, happiness and sadness, good times and bad times.
Ellie Midwood’s well researched, well crafted World War II novel follows the life of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a high-ranking SS official from Austria. While based on a real historical figure of this name, the character of Ernst is fictionalized. The story swaps effortlessly back and forth between the novel’s current day of 1946 of his imprisonment while he awaits trial for his war crimes and his past–from his boyhood and first love with a Jewish girl to how he would up serving in the Nazi party.
The novel opens with Ernst in Nuremburg Prison on the day of his execution. We know his life is at the end, so this might seem like a strange place to start, but how did this man wind up in the gallows?
Ernst comes from a family where he’s the oldest son, so the expectation is that he will follow in his father’s footsteps of becoming a lawyer, marrying, and having a family of his own. Ernst is also a big, strong boy for his age, and his father encourages him to beat up those who deserve it. As a young man, Ernst stands up for those who the bullies pick on at school, including Dalia, who is a little older than him and Jewish.
He even has to act as the head of his household when his father is drafted during World War I. He seems to grow up before his time, even proposing to Dalia when he’s not old enough to marry. Dalia, however, knows they could never be together because of their backgrounds. The young Ernst doesn’t understand this, as both of their fathers are lawyers, and if Dalia and he love each other, what’s the problem?
Feeling bitter and heartbroken, Ernst leaves Dalia. He begins attending secret political meetings with his father, where people get together who oppose the current government. He meets a young woman named Melita afterward and begins hanging out with some college students, and from there, Ernst’s connections to the “right people” grow.
As he gets older, he moves up in the ranks of the Austrian SS. He’s a mixture of a man who stands up for the underdog and who can easily beat someone to a pulp, sensitive and aggressive. Before he knows it, he’s the damned leader, all the while wondering how he got into this position.
The story continues in the second book, including how Ernst falls in love with a woman who is the only beckon of hope he has as he awaits his end in prison. I look forward to reading the rest of his story.
Ellie Midwood is an expert of World War II history, and it shows in his book. The historical facts check out, yet flow flawlessly with the fictionalized story of Ernst.
Her writing is lovely and at times heart-wrenching. Ernst is a good man who got caught up in the wrong world. His one true love is what gives him hope during his last days in prison, where he is left wondering if he did right by his life.
For anyone who is a fan of historical fiction and a complicated romance, I recommend this novel. It’s top-notch!
5 of out 5 stars!
Purchase The Austrian (Book 1) here.
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Review of Emilia: The Darkest Days in History of Nazi Germany Through a Woman’s Eyes by Ellie Midwood
Warning: contains spoilers.
Every so often, a novel feels so real that the characters seem to be breathing right off the page. Emilia is one of those stories.
The title clearly states what this book is about, but it doesn’t give away the horrors that the protagonist, Emilia Brettenheimer, endures during World War II. Emilia is a young Jewish woman who grew up in Germany, but her family is forced to relocate to a ghetto. She lives with her parents and three brothers, two of whom are considered useful workers in the ghetto.
While living in the ghetto, she thinks her life has surely taken a turn for the worse. Food is hard to come by, at least enough food to thrive. She begins, out of desperation, to give away the family’s hidden gold and then her services, in the sexual sense, to an SS guard named Richer, in exchange for enough food to feed her family.
She becomes pregnant with his child. Just when she is on the brink of wondering what to do, things turn even darker. Her mother, Hannah, and she are carted off to a labor camp in Poland after the unthinkable happens.
We all know the horrors of concentration camps. Emilia’s baby is aborted, and she is put through a harrowing procedure that renders her no longer able to have children. I cannot imagine the physical and emotional pain that would have involved. Being a mother, having my children is one of my greatest blessings. To take that away from a person is to say they are somehow not worthy of being a parent, that they are subhuman and should be allowed to be neutered or spayed like an animal.
The one saving grace poor Emilia has is her new friend, Magda, a red-headed girl about her age who finds something to be grateful for in the midst of hell. Magda explains that an attractive young woman like Emilia could use her looks to get on the good side of the SS guards and get more food. It’s a matter of survival. The game they’re playing has no real winners, for a young woman loses her innocence to get a piece of bread. Some of the guards are no less than bears, the sex nothing less than pure rape.
What Emilia had with Richer was heavenly bliss in comparison.
Things continue to unravel. Emilia’s life spirals downward, for how can she hope to survive this horror, let alone hold to the belief that there is any mercy to be had?
The war ends, but the price of survival is too much to pay. Embittered to the point of hatred for her tormentors, and understandably so, Emilia tries to make her way in this new world.
Yet there are people in Emilia’s life who have been the balm of healing, those who have shown her a better way. Will Emilia, broken and battered from her experiences, choose to hold onto her shattered pieces, or will she manage to rebuild her live, one piece painstakingly at a time, to create the masterpiece of forgiveness, wholeness, and love?
Ellie Midwood’s extensive knowledge of World War II is evident throughout. She writes Emilia’s experiences with gut-wrenching rawness. It hurts to read, but you can’t stop. Perhaps to experience just a small fraction of the pain a Jewish woman would have endured during those years is a testament to us all of the horrors of humanity and one of the lowest points of history for mankind. To think there are things going on like this in the world today is an atrocity. This fictional book raises awareness to a very real evil.
5 out of 5 stars
Buy Ellie’s book here.
Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post a new blog every Friday, including book reviews.
My new novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for only $2.99 here.
My first novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $3.99 here.
