First, this is a fascinating story and while I was pretty sure I knew how it was going to end, I was never certain how.
This story follows Anna Schlemmer, a Post World War II, German immigrant to New Heidelburg, a fictitious town in southeastern Minnesota, and her daughter, Trudy, born during the war years and now a professor of German history at the University of Minnesota. The story moves back and forth from Germany in WWII and the present time, the mid-1990s in Minnesota.
Trudy was a very small child when her mother married an American soldier and came to the US. She remembers very little about those years, but she has a photograph that appears to be a family photo of her mother, a Nazi officer and her. She thinks the Nazi officer is her father but her mother will not speak of that time.
Anna worked in a bakery in Weimar, Germany, during the war and although she did help with the resistance movement, partially because Trudy's father is a Jewish doctor who has been imprisoned in nearby Buchenwald, she also had a relationship with a Nazi officer during the war.
Trudy starts a research project to study the actions and feelings of Germans during World War II and this leads her to learn the truth of her mother's life.
As I said, I knew Trudy was going to learn about her mother's story, but I wasn't sure how and much of it would be revealed to her.
The book is an exploration in salvation and shame.
This story follows Anna Schlemmer, a Post World War II, German immigrant to New Heidelburg, a fictitious town in southeastern Minnesota, and her daughter, Trudy, born during the war years and now a professor of German history at the University of Minnesota. The story moves back and forth from Germany in WWII and the present time, the mid-1990s in Minnesota.
Trudy was a very small child when her mother married an American soldier and came to the US. She remembers very little about those years, but she has a photograph that appears to be a family photo of her mother, a Nazi officer and her. She thinks the Nazi officer is her father but her mother will not speak of that time.
Anna worked in a bakery in Weimar, Germany, during the war and although she did help with the resistance movement, partially because Trudy's father is a Jewish doctor who has been imprisoned in nearby Buchenwald, she also had a relationship with a Nazi officer during the war.
Trudy starts a research project to study the actions and feelings of Germans during World War II and this leads her to learn the truth of her mother's life.
As I said, I knew Trudy was going to learn about her mother's story, but I wasn't sure how and much of it would be revealed to her.
The book is an exploration in salvation and shame.
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