The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman

Valentina Kaplan lives in Pripyat, Ukraine with her mother Galina Yurievna Goldman Kaplan and her father, Nicolai.

One Saturday morning in April, 1986, she awakens to find that there are no blue jays, blackbirds or sparrows in the sky or on her windowsill waiting to eat the pieces of salami. To the south, instead of the robin-egg blue sky, there is a crimson glow with blue smoke lifting into the sky. Underneath that smoke is the nuclear power station,  the V.I. Lenin Power Station, also called Chernobyl, where her father works. Valentina's father is usually home from his night shift at the power station by morning, but today he hasn't returned.

Although Valentina is beginning to panic, her mother reminds her that they were running a safety drill at the station and that he might simply be late. She also tells Valentina that they must act normal, go to school and work so they don't attract the attention of the government and the secret police. And because they are Jews and hated, it was important to be safe. 

Outside, Valentina notes that the air tastes like metal and sees policemen everywhere. At school, Valentina meets Oksana Savchenko, a Ukrainian girl with blond hair and blue eyes. Oksana lives with her father, Ilya who works at the power plant. She dislikes Valentina who is Jewish because her father has told her that all Jews are liars who work together to try to destroy everyone else. Valentina's father had been given the promotion at the nuclear station that should have gone to Oksana's father. Oksana challenges Valentina to a race in the  hopes she can win and go home to brag to her father, but she loses the race. When Oksana taunts Valentina about being Jewish, their teacher, Svetlana Dmitrievna steps and punishes the two girls by having them kneel on rice. 

While none of her classmates seem concerned, when they leave school at noon, Valentina sees military trucks with drivers wearing gas masks driving into Pripyat. As the two girls return to their apartments in the same building, Valentina meets Dyadya Sergei who is very brown from "tanning" on the roof. In Oksana's apartment just as they are getting ready to eat, Valentina and her mother, Galina Yurievna arrive and tell Oksana and her mother Eleonora that she has learned that reactor number four exploded during the safety drill, causing the explosion and a fire. The men are now at the hospital and the mothers and daughters leave carrying their family's radiation medicine: a glass bottle of milk and cucumbers. On their way out of the building they encounter Dyadya Sergei who is now suddenly desperately ill. Oksana's mother tells him he needs to get to the hospital. Oksana wonders if there is something in the air that can hurt them.

At Pripyat Hospital it is chaotic and filled with horrific smells. Valentina and her mother find her father, Nicolai, burning with fever, sweating profusely. Valentina is hauled out of the room by a doctor who tells them that the explosion has made her father's body very radioactive and that being close to him might kill her. He tells them to leave immediately and that he cannot tell the other families because the government is worried about causing widespread panic. The doctor also tells them that their husbands are being flown to a special hospital in Moscow and that they should return with clothing for them.  But when they return they learn that the men have already been taken to Moscow.

In her apartment, Oksana tries to study but instead focuses on drawing. Her father wanted her to study engineering and Oksana was good at math and science but she hated these subjects. Oksana's mother reveals that her father was buried under the rubble from the explosion and is dead. Her mother mostly ignores Oksana and is worried about being alone. In Valentina's apartment, her mother makes her take the tablets, they shower and throw away the clothing they were wearing. 

The next day they are ordered to be evacuated from Pripyat. When they are checked with dosimeters, Oksana's mother is sent to the hospital as her radiation levels are too high. A terrified, distraught Oksana is taken in by Valentina's mother who tells her they must take the bus to Kiev where she has a friend who can help them. On the bus, Oksana notes all the dead blackbirds and sparrows and the damaged trees and bushes.

In Kiev, Oksana wants to travel to Minsk where her mother has been hospitalized but Valentina's mother discourages her from doing so, telling her the trip is too far and that she will call to find out about her mother. Instead they take the subway to Dimeezskaya Street where Valentina's mother's friend, Masha Petrovna lives

At the apartment, the girls bathe and that's when Valentina sees Oksana's wounded back and scars. They are unable to learn much about Oksana's mother and unable to reach her relatives near Pripyat. When they listen to the foreign radio station they learn that "... high levels of radiation were detected at a Swedish nuclear power plant this morning..." and that "Swedish nuclear experts traced the weekend's wind currents and determined the radiation originated from the Soviet Union."  With the government denying everything, Valentina's mother realizes this is much worse than she believed. As a result Masha insists Valentina's mother and the girls leave immediately, believing them to be a health risk. 

Valentina's mother decides they will travel to Leningrad to live with her mother but when they try to get train tickets, only two are available so Valentina and Oksana are put on the train while she stays behind. In Leningrad the two girls are met by Valentina's grandmother or Babulya, Rits Grigorievna. 

Life with Babulya proves to undo the lies that Oksana has been told by her father about Jews. Not only that but for the first time in her life, she begins to feel good about herself and truly loved. Oksana learns the truth about herself and it is this belief in her own goodness that ultimate saves Oksana when she finds herself back in an abusive situation with her mother.

Interspersed with Valentina and Oksana's stories, is the story of twelve-year-old Rifka Friedman who is living in Kiev, Ukraine, Soviet Union with her pregnant mother and two younger brothers. In August of 1941, the Germans begin their invasion of the country. Rifka's mother, who has just given birth to her brother Avrum, insists that she flee east with her fifteen year old cousin, Nathan. 

The two leave but when the German army catches up to them, Rifka and Nathan hide in a farmer's barn. However, the farmer forces Nathan to work for him, while Rifka must continue on alone. She escapes the German bombing with the help of fleeing Ukrainian refugees who do not realize she is Jewish. Rifka realizes this when they accept her presence and uses the name Yelena. However, as fall turns to bitter winter and Rifka suffers from hunger and the cold, she is overheard mumbling in her sleep about Adonai - the Jewish word for God. She is forced out into the cold. Near death, Rifka is rescued by a young Muslim girl, Feruza Chorieva and her mother Ona.

Rifka stays the remainder of the war in Tashket, Uzbekistan, a part of the Soviet Union, living with Feruza and her seven siblings. Feruza and her mother Una accept Rifka even though she is Jewish. She attends school but works on their farm and is treated with love and care. Believing God has abandoned her, Rifka decides to ignore God.

When the war ends, Rifka returns to Kiev to find her family have all been murdered. In despair and unsure what to do she travels to Leningrad. There at the Shabbat service at the Grand Choral Synagogue, she meets a young boy, Yuri Goldman, whom she eventually marries. They have a daughter, Galina, which mean "light". Galina will go on to marry and have her own daughter, Valentina, thus completing the circle and connecting all the characters.

Discussion

The Blackbird Girls is a beautifully crafted story about friendship that spans a forty-year period and two major catastrophes, the German invasion of Ukraine in 1941 and the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

The novel opens in April, 1986 in the city of Pripyat, Ukraine on a Saturday morning as two girls, Ukrainian Oksana Savchenko and Jewish Valentina Kaplan are going about their day, attending school in the morning as usual. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor has malfunctioned during a test overnight, has exploded and is now on fire. The people of Pripyat are unaware of the deadly situation they are in. They believe whatever has happened, their government will protect them and their men who work at the reactor. As the day progresses and the situation worsens, they are evacuated. However, Oksana's mother is taken away because she has been exposed to a higher level of radiation, having worked for a short time on the rooftop garden. Oksana finds herself alone, her father having died during the explosion, with no where to go. It is Valentina's mother who kindly takes charge of Oksana, telling her they will care for her.

From this point forward, against the backdrop of the Chernobyl disaster and their evacuation, this story focuses on the relationship between Oksana Savchenko and the Jewish Kaplans.  Although the two girls are classmates, they are not friends. Oksana has been told by her parents that "All Jews are liars...They're always watching you, trying to find a way to steal your job away from you or take your place...." Oksana has been told her father didn't get the promotion he deserved because of Valentina's father. Her deeply entrenched anti-Semitic views make Oksana reluctant to be connected with the Kaplans.

In Kiev, Oksana continues to feel alone and afraid. "What should she do? Who would help her? She couldn't stay with the Kaplans. Her father hated them." When Valentina's mother insists that Oksana stay with them in Kiev, Oksana continues to feel conflicted. "Stay with Jews. In the same room. Eat the same foods. Sleep under the same ceiling." Oksana realizes she has no one to rescue her except two Jews. 

As Valentina and Oksana are sent on alone to Leningrad to Valentina's grandmother, Oksana begins to realize that what she's been told about Jews by her father doesn't seem to be true. Valentina's gratitude towards Oksana for helping her understand her father's last words trigger Oksana to remember her father saying "that gratitude from a Jew was a poisoned gift. That they were liars...."  These revelations create a deep sense of conflict within Oksana regarding her father.

Babulya's modest apartment, called a kommunalka or community apartment is where the poorest people lived. Oksana's father had said that Jews were secretly rich and hid their money. But Babulya's home and lifestyle was that of a poor person. These revelations crush Oksana. Was her father just mistaken or lying? If her father was wrong about Jews perhaps he had been wrong about other things too. Oksana feels confused and angry.

Valentina and Babulya's kindness deepen Oksana's conviction that she has been lied too. Oksana arrives at Babulya's with a badly infected wound from a cigarette burn inflicted on her by her abusive father. Her abuse is discovered when Valentina and her grandmother have to take her to the hospital. This revelation  makes Valentina realize how little she really knows about her classmate. The kindness Oksana experiences begins to change her. When Valentina is bulled at their new school, Oksana defends her.  She also begins to believe in herself, that she is good, not weak or bad as her father had repeatedly told her. Valentina changes too, deciding she no longer wants to hurt Oksana.

Oksana's deepest desire is to be reunited with her mother, believing that with her abusive father now dead, she and her mother will have the chance to forge a meaningful relationship. However, this doesn't come to pass when her mother becomes involved with yet another abusive man. Losing all hope, Oksana reaches out to the one person who has been a faithful friend, and that is Valentina. In an act of friendship and love that unites the three main characters and transcends time, Valentina and her mother reach out to Feruza, to once again rescue someone in dire need.

The Blackbird Girls is a wonderful story of the healing power of friendship. Blankman has created realistic characters who suffer deeply but also grow as a result of the kindness of others. Just as Feruza and her mother helped Rifka heal from the extreme suffering and hate she experienced during World War II, Rifka now a grandmother (Babuyla) and Valentina help Oksana heal from the abuse and lack of love within her own family. This gives Oksana the courage to leave and find safety once again with Feruza, bringing the circle of healing to a close.

The blackbirds, mentioned throughout the novel and in the title, are "...a symbol for eternity" Feruza tells Rifka. Feruza believes their friendship will last their entire lives, binding them together no matter where they are. Like Rifka and Feruza, Valentina and Oksana are also "blackbird girls".  Valentina, who wants to have Oksana return to Leningrad, fears she will never see Oksana again. Babulya tells her "Distance between true friends doesn't matter when their friendship lives in their hearts..." and that Oksana, after hearing her story about living with Feruza, believes that Valentina is her "blackbird girl". 

Blankman had wanted to write a book about the Chernobyl disaster ever since she met a new friend at the ninth-grade sleepover. That friend, Victoria Belfer Zabarko told her she had survived the disaster as a child. Victoria was one of thousands of Soviet children who were sent out of the Chernobyl region. Her parents had one plane ticket which they used to send her to relatives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Eventually, her whole family would emigrate to the United States. 

The Blackbird Girls offers a historical perspective on both the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as well as the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. Surprisingly, even in 1986, widespread anti-Semitism still existed in the Soviet Union, something many readers may not realize. Overall, The Blackbird Girls is a well-written piece of historical fiction that offers many themes to explore including abuse, the meaning and role of friendship, and racism. Blankman offers resources in the back matter for those suffering from abuse and there is a section, Further Reading providing fiction and nonfiction resources on the Soviet Union. 

This is a novel that may have been overlooked since it was published in 2020 just prior to the onset of the Covid pandemic. Well worth the read!

Book Details:

The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman
New York: Viking    2020
340 pp.

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke is the sequel to Prisoner of Night and Fog. This novel wraps up the duology about two young teens, one of whom is Jewish, who attempt to warn the world about the danger of Hitler coming to power in Germany in the early 1930s.

Now living in London with Doctor Alfred Whitestone's family, Gretchen Muller is struggling to adjust to life in a new country. She's been living the Whitestones for seventeen months. Alfred considers Gretchen his "daughter in every sense of the word that matters." Gretchen had met Alfred at her mother's boardinghouse in Munich where he had been studying the rise of Adolf Hitler. It was Dr. Whitestone's intention to write about Hitler's strange psychological profile in a medical journal in order to obtain a position at a London hospital. However, in order to protect Gretchen and Daniel, he has forgone this opportunity. He continues to work at the Oxford Psychoanalytical Clinic.

Gretchen and Alfred arrive home to a surprise 18th birthday party for Gretchen. Although she turned eighteen-years-old seven months earlier, they are staying true to Gretchen's fake identity which changed her birth date. Also there are Alfred's wife, Julia and their three sons, twelve-year-old Colin, ten-year-old Andrew and eight-year-old Jack and Gretchen's friend Mary. The best surprise though is the presence of her friend, Daniel Cohen who is working as a reporter at the Oxford Mail, writing a society column. It is a job he's not happy with especially after working in Germany at the Munich Post, writing about Hitler's rise to power and the National Socialist Party.  However, Alfred encourages Daniel telling him eventually he will prove himself.

Alfred brings to the attention of Daniel and Gretchen, Winston Churchill's words at a debate at Oxford University. Churchill, at a meeting of various unions, warned that Germany was on the threshold of war and that there are rumours about Jewish persecution. However, no one seems to be listening to Churchill whose time in English politics seems to be over. Daniel's experience has been that most Members of the English Parliament were also not interested in what he had to say about Hitler.

Unfortunately, Gretchen's birthday party is interrupted by the Whitestone's cook who tells them that Daniel's landlady just called to let him know a telegram from Germany arrived for him. Daniel races home leaving Gretchen very worried. She worries because of what her own family has experienced back in Germany. Her father was killed nine years ago by Hitler because he knew that Hitler had been diagnosed as a psychopath while in a military hospital during World War I.  Hitler shot Gretchen's father during a street fight between the National Socialists and the German police. Despite losing the presidential election, Hitler and the National Socialists continue to be favoured by the German people and just last month President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as German Chancellor.

When Daniel doesn't contact Gretchen the next day she visits his home on Iffley Road and is given a letter by his landlady. The note informs Gretchen that his cousin, Aaron Pearlman was attacked and is not expected to survive. Aaron was attacked when he refused to salute the National Socialists as they paraded through Munich. Daniel has returned to Germany to see that the men who attacked Aaron are brought to justice. Gretchen is horrified that Daniel has returned to Germany as she believes he is facing certain death if caught. 

For the next six days Gretchen struggles to go through daily life. Then they learn that on February 27, the Reichstag, which is the seat of the German government, was set on fire. The blaze was believed to be the work of either the Nazis or the Communists who are battling for control of Germany. Gretchen and the Whitestones learn that President Hindenberg and Chancellor Hitler have declared a state of emergency and suspended "all major civil liberties including freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom to assemble."  Gretchen knows this means that Daniel will not be able to contact her and that all correspondence will be monitored. The newspapers reveal that twenty-four-year-old Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested for arson. Five days later, Gretchen receives a note from Daniel's editor at the Oxford Mail telling her that he received a mysterious telegram hinting that Daniel may be in serious trouble in Germany and that he is wanted for murder in Berlin.

Against the advice of the Whitestones, Gretchen decides she must return to Germany as quickly as possible. Alfred drives her to the train station and gives her five hundred pounds to help her in her hunt for Daniel. Gretchen arrives in Munich to find the SA (Sturmabteilung) have stormed the office of Fritz Gerlich's newspaper, the anti-National Socialist, Der Gerade Wag. Gerlich tells Gretchen that he saw Daniel a few days after he arrived in Germany. He had been beaten and his money and false papers taken. Shortly afterwards, the party-sponsored newspapers announced that Daniel was wanted for the murder of a woman named Monika Junge. Daniel has not been seen since and the city is under attack by the SA who have been pillaging businesses. Gerlich informs Gretchen that nothing is done to stop the attacks because the SA have now taken over Munich's police force, with Heinrich Himmler now Munich's acting police chief. As Gretchen is leaving, Max Amann the head of the Eher Verlag, the National Socialist publishing house, arrives to arrest Gerlich. Flashing her swastika necklace to Amann, Gretchen is allowed to leave, while Gerlich is being beaten.

Her next stop is the office of the Munich Post which she hopes the SA have not yet attacked. However, she's too late. Desperate, Gretchen decides to visit her girlfriend, Eva Braun who is now Hitler's companion. She contacts Herr Hoffman's Photography shop where Eva works and asks her to find out if Daniel Cohen was arrested during the raid on the Munich Post. When Gretchen and Eva meet in Englischer Garten, she learns that Daniel was not arrested. Eva tells Gretchen that Hitler still talks about her and that she is not safe in Munich. 

Taking Eva's advice, Gretchen travels to the Hauptbahnhof where she plans to take the train to Berlin. Unexpectedly she meets Daniel who is also taking the same express train and they board together staying in a double compartment. Daniel tells Gretchen he cannot leave until he clears his name. Daniel fills Gretchen in on what happened when he arrived in Munich to investigate Aaron's death.  He learned from his friends at the Munich Post that the kind of attacks Aaron succumbed to are happening all over Germany. After leaving the offices of the Post he was assaulted by the SA and his papers stolen. He believes the SA in Berlin learned of his return to Germany and he was framed for the murder of a young woman. Daniel tells her that "If I can get proof that the National Socialists are behind the murder, I'll give it to a foreign correspondent friend I have in Berlin. He'll have the story printed in his paper in England. It'll be an enormous scandal for the National Socialists. All eyes will be on Berlin, and they'll have to let me leave the country." Daniel believes that he might even be able to bring down the National Socialists.

Just how difficult this will be is demonstrated when Gretchen and Daniel barely escape the train at Dachau as it is being searched by the SA. Cold, exhausted and hungry they make their way to Gretchen's grandparent's farm. Gretchen is shocked to discover her mother living in abject poverty and not welcoming towards Daniel. They travel to Daniel's parent's home in Berlin where his parents are not welcoming to her and his mother reveals the depths of Daniel's unhappiness in England. Knowing that both their families do not accept either of them, Gretchen and Daniel set about the task at hand; to determine who killed Monika Junge and discover why Daniel was framed for her murder. As they dig deeper, they soon uncover a plot that leads them back to the Reichstag and the fire of February 27.

Discussion

In Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke, author Anne Blankman has crafted a good piece of historical fiction that incorporates one of the most significant events in the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, the burning of the Reichstag which was the seat of the German Republic.  Blankman's story revolves around the mystery that surrounded the fire at the time. 

The Reichstag was set on fire on February 27, 1933, days before parliamentary elections were to be held on March 5. Chancellor Hitler was determined to see a majority of Nazis elected and anything that would push the German people to vote for the Nazis was encouraged.  A lone person, Marius van der Lubbe, who was an unemployed brick layer with links to the Communist party, was arrested for the arson. When Hitler heard that a communist had been arrested he was furious. He was quoted as saying, "You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in German history...This fire is the beginning."

The Nazi's used their radio and press to put forth the propaganda that the fire was evidence the Communists were planning to seize control of the government. The fear of a Communist revolution led to the immediate passage, the day after the fire, of the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree suspended all democratic rights for the German people, including the freedom of the press and the freedom to associate.

However, many people both in Germany and throughout the world, believed that the Nazis were responsible for the burning of the Reichstag. They could then use the fire to gradually pass laws that would restrict the rights of the press and the people, setting the stage for Hitler to eventually become dictator. The Enabling Act, which Blankman mentions in her novel began the process of creating a dictatorship in Germany.  As Blankman writes, "On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, effectively voting itself out of existence." Within a month almost all Communist deputies were incarcerated. Although Blankman states in her Author's Note that research after World War II appears to conclude that the fire was the work of only one man, van der Lubbe, controversy still exists as to who really set the Reichstag ablaze.

In her detailed Author's Note at the back of the novel, Blankman writes that while many of the main characters in the novel are fictitious, there are many real historical figures included in the story. These include Adolf Hitler, Marius van der Lubbe, Eva Braun who committed suicide along with Hitler as the Russian army entered Berlin, Ernst Hanfstaengl, Ernst Gennat, Fritz Gerlich, Max Amann, Sefton "Tom" Delmer and of course Winston Churchill. She provides a brief sketch of each of these historical figures.

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke is really a mystery romance with Daniel and Gretchen racing to clear Daniel of murder before the Enabling Act is passed. Blankman does an excellent job of portraying a Germany slowly slipping into brutality and anarchy. People begin disappearing, people on the street murdered or beaten with people unwilling to intervene out of blind fear. Any newspapers in opposition to the Nazi's are sacked, their reporters intimidated, arrested or murdered. The average person struggles not to stand out so as not to attract the attention of the SA or the dreaded SS. The terror, which could happen at any moment, is well demonstrated when Gretchen and Birgit are walking on the street and a car appears. Ordinarily this would not be a frightening event but life in Germany is anything but ordinary. "Up and down the avenue, men stopped walking, their shoulders tense, their heads swiveling as they watched the car drive past....
The car doors sprang open. Men scrambled out, about five or six of them. They wore the brown uniforms of the SA. In their hands, they clutched truncheons...
The SA men strode to the nearest shop. As she watched, they raised their truncheons high, then smashed them down on the darkened shop's windows. The glass shattered.
Break everything in sight!" one of the men shouted.
Comprehension flashed through Gretchen's mind. It was a Strafexpedition, an excursion made by National Socialists into a Jewish or Communist neighborhood to punish the people who lived there."

The book takes its title from a conversation that Hitler once had with Gretchen's father, who was a friend of Hitler before he murdered him. "They'll swallow anything if it's repeated often enough, he had said, clapping her father on the shoulder. Like blood and smoke, eh, Muller? The truth doesn't matter. Only the appearance of it." As Gretchen ponders these words she wonders what Hitler meant by them.  "She frowned. Hitler had said that he didn't need to tell the truth; he merely needed to appear as though he did. He had sounded as if he were planning on deliberately misleading others. Like setting fire to Berlin's seat of government, a terrorist attack reported all over the world, and then blaming your strongest political opponents for it."

Overall, Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke is a fitting conclusion to the story of Gretchen and Daniel. At times Gretchen's narrative is overwhelmed by her romantic feelings towards Daniel. Blankman even creates a bit of romantic tension between the two when Gretchen learns that he has not been happy in England and she wonders if they have a future together. Perhaps a little less romance and bit more editing would have helped. Nevertheless, fans of historical fiction will delight in this fine novel about a very interesting and frightening period in world history.

Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire#/media/File:Reichstagsbrand.jpg

Book Details:

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke by Anne Blankman
New York: Balzer & Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers      2015
393 pp.

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

Seventeen year old Gretchen Muller lives in Munich with her mother and her older brother Reinhard. Gretchen and Reinhard have grown up in the National Socialist Party (NSDAP) believing all its ideology. Her father was a member of the party but was killed in the Munich Putsch of 1923. After the failing to take over the city, the National Socialists marched through Munich with Hitler in the lead. Her father was in the front, when the city's police officers opened fire and he jumped in front of Hitler, saving him from the bullets.

After her father's death, her family was left impoverished. With the help of  Hitler and the NSDAP her mother was put in charge of running a boarding house, where Gretchen now lives. She's always been a favourite of Adolf Hitler whom she affectionately calls Uncle Dolf.

The novel opens with Gretchen and her friend Eva Braun and her brother Reinhard and his friend Kurt, on their way to meet Adolf Hitler at a café. Gretchen is shocked as Kurt tries to run down a Jewish man crossing the road and then stops the car to confront him. Knowing that Reinhard and Kurt are about to beat the man, Gretchen yells at them to stop, fearing a brawl will contribute to the further bad image of the Party. Fortunately, the commotion draws a policeman who tells Reinhard and Kurt to get moving. Left alone, the Jewish man thanks Gretchen, who doesn't know what to think since Uncle Dolf has told her "Gratitude from a Jew was a poisoned gift..." After the man leaves, Gretchen is confronted by a mysterious boy who calls her by name and then vanishes.

Eva and Gretchen, now disinvited by Reinhard, walk to Eva's home. Although having grown up in the Party, Eva and Gretchen are very different. Eva wants to get away from her strict father who does not approve of her friendship with Hitler and become an actress, while Gretchen wants to become a doctor.

Gretchen's life is a mixture of confusing opposites. She is haunted by the terrible death of her father during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. He's considered a martyr for the party. At home, Gretchen struggles to deal with her cruel brother, Reinhard, whom she is certain will attempt revenge for her stopping the beating of the Jewish man. She lives in fear of him, sleeping at night with a chair wedged under the door handle and is always on the alert for one of his cruel tricks. Although Gretchen has been brought up with National Socialist ideas, she finds it difficult to follow the Party teachings on Jews. Erika Goldberg is a funny, happy classmate who is also Jewish. Gretchen is supposed to despise Erika but instead she admires Erika's ability to do Latin, and her funny jokes.

The day after the incident with the Jewish man, Gretchen receives a letter from the mysterious boy who briefly spoke with her in the alleyway. The letter contains an enigmatic message; "Your father did not die a martyr to the Nazi cause, and your family's precarious position within Hitler's party is predicated on a lie." She meets him outside her home and learns he is a reporter. Knowing Gretchen is a Nazi party insider, he suggests an exchange of information. He tells her that with Hitler poised to become President of Germany, the truth about Hitler must be revealed to the German people and he hopes that Gretchen as a party insider can provide him with information. In exchange he tells Gretchen that her father did not die saving Hitler but was in fact murdered by a National Socialist comrade. He tells her to meet him at the Golden Phoenix nightclub the next evening.

When Gretchen returns home her mother tells her that she will no longer be able to attend school but must find a job due to their financial situation.  Filled with disbelief and shock, Gretchen decides to seek out Uncle Dolf who is speaking at the Circus Krone that night. At the event is Geli Raubal, Hitler's half niece, whom Gretchen knows very well. Seeing the mysterious boy in attendance, she questions Geli who tells her that he is Daniel Cohen, a Jewish reporter for the local Socialist newspaper, the Munich Post. 

Hitler is not sympathetic to Gretchen's desire to continue her studies and instead tells her that she can work for Ernst Hanfstaengl who is the NSDAP foreign-press chief. Outside the Circus Krone, the NSDAP members are confronted by the Communists and a brawl begins. SA chief Ernst Rohm sees to it that her brother's friend, Kurt drives Gretchen home. The confrontation between the National Socialists and the Communists brings back memories of her father's death and leads Gretchen to check his old Great War uniform he was wearing at the time of his death. She discovers a bullet hole in the back of his shirt with grey powder around the edges indicating that this bullet was fired at close range. Gretchen realizes that this means someone shot her father in the back and that it must have been another National Socialist because they were the only ones behind her father. She now believes Daniel was right about her father's death.

The next night Gretchen sneaks out to meet Daniel at the Golden Phoenix. Daniel accuses Gretchen of setting the SA thugs on Stefan Dearstyne at the Circus Krone to preserve her family's reputation but Gretchen has no idea what he's talking about. As they dance, Gretchen learns from Daniel that Dearstyne grew curious about the Munich putsch after reading his brother Lars's diary. Unfortunately before she can talk at length with him, Reinhard shows up with Eva Braun looking for her.

The next day when she goes to the Braunes Haus, headquarters of the National Socialist Party, to begin work, Gretchen overhears that Reinhard has been selected for some special assignment. Her work with Hanfstaengl provides Gretchen with the opportunity to question him regarding what happened to her father during the putsch. Hanfstaengl reveals to Gretchen that her father seemed very upset when he arrived at the beer hall. She also realizes that the version she's been told doesn't make sense; her father was at the front of the marching SA with Hitler when he should have been at the back and she wants to know why this was.

Daniel meets Gretchen to show her Stefan Dearstyne's diary but tells her that Dearstyne is planning to kill himself because he believes the SA are after him. Daniel tells Gretchen they must retrieve Stefan's brother's diary before Rohm and his men do so. In Stefan's apartment, Gretchen finds a picture of her father taken just before he was shot dead and they also find Dearstyne's brother, Lars's diary.After barely escaping before Rohm and his men arrive, Gretchen and Daniel head to the Diana Temple where they read the Dearstyne diary entry. This entry notes what Gretchen has already discovered, that her father was shot in the back and the force of the shot knocked him in front of Hitler, inadvertently saving Hitler from the bullets that were meant for the Nazi leader. Gretchen tells Daniel that she needs to learn what really happened to her father and he advises her that this may mean her family will lose its privileged status.

When Gretchen returns home she decides to search Reinhard's room hoping to find more clues about her father, but his room is empty with white walls and nothing significant. Startled by her mother coming upstairs, Gretchen doesn't have time to relock his door. The next morning Gretchen attends a picnic on the Chiemsse with Uncle Dolf, Herr Hanfstaegnl, Heinrich Hoffman and his daughter Henny and Geli Raubal. For the first time Gretchen begins to notice that Hitler seems attracted to the very much younger Geli. After the picnic Gretchen returns home to find her cat dead, its neck broken and she is violently assaulted by Reinhard who continues to beat her until she tells him why she was in his room. Badly beaten and finding no help from her mother, Gretchen flees their home and goes to Uncle Dolf's apartment in Munich. However she finds no comfort or support there. Instead, Hitler tells her that Reinhard is the man of the house and is right to discipline her. For the first time, Gretchen begins to see that the image she had of Hitler is false. The next morning she leaves his apartment and is turned away by Herr Braun as well. With no where left to go, Gretchen seeks out Daniel who takes her to a Communist doctor.  Daniel takes her in despite opposition from his cousins, Aaron and Ruth. During her short time with Daniel, Gretchen learns about Hitler's real plans for Germany and the Jews. Understanding what Hitler really is Gretchen decides she must return to her home if she is ever to learn what really happened to her father.

The more Gretchen uncovers about the putsch and her father's movements, the more questions she has about her father, his relationship with Adolf Hitler and what really happened on the day he was killed. Gretchen's questions lead her and Daniel to uncover a startling secret about Hitler that places them both in grave danger.

Discussion

Prisoner of Night and Fog is an ambitious undertaking by author Anne Blankman. Set in 1931, it features Adolf Hitler prominently prior to him coming to power in Germany. Blankman was inspired to write her novel after she learned about Geli Raubal who shared his Munich apartment.

The novel is divided into four parts; Part One A Girl of Wax which is Gretchen who simply follows what she's been told by the adults in her life, Part Two The Great Magician, a reference to the mesmerizing Hitler,  Part Three On Desperate Defiance which tells about Gretchen's defiance of both what she's been taught and the cultural norms of Munich society in the 1931 and Part Four The Infernal Machine which portrays how the National Socialist Party has already become a machine of terror, murdering all who stand in the way of it achieving total control.

Having Hitler as a major character could have easily backfired but Blankman is careful as to how he is portrayed and the dialogue she assigns to him. At first Adolf Hitler is portrayed as the doting "uncle" who has taken Gretchen's family under his wing, providing them with a home and lots of perks for Gretchen and Reinhard. At the beginning of the novel Gretchen describes Hitler in positive ways describing him as "No one else had such a lovely voice, dark and warm and rich, like melted chocolate." He is a man who affectionately called her "Gretl", or "sunshine" his pet name for her, and often kissed the back of her hands. He is a man who talks to her about music and painting and Gretchen feels proud that "he had chosen her to mold into that perfect girl" "a golden shining example of womanhood for the other German ladies to emulate."  However, as the story evolves, Gretchen begins to discover the true Adolf Hitler, a complex man who is a psychopath. When she hears him talk at the Osteria Bavaria, Gretchen realizes what Hitler is proposing. "The man she had loved as a father was a fraud. He kissed the backs of her hands and advocated war; he ruffled her hair and preached death; he had played with her on the carpet with toy soldiers, and all along he had been planning the extinction of an entire people."

Underpinning the mystery in this historical fiction novel, is the journey of Gretchen as she comes to discover the lies she's been taught about the Jewish people, her own history and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) as well as what really happened to her father.

In the beginning of the novel when Gretchen tells her brother not to hurt the Jewish man she remembers what she has been taught in the National Socialist Party of Adolf Hitler. "The Jew is my eternal enemy. These words had guided her heart for twelve years, thanks to her honorary "uncle" Dolf." Her motives are not concern for the Jewish man but, for the image of the Party. She notices the man is a young Hasidic Jew and recognizes the fear and pain in his voice. This goes against what she has been taught about the Jewish people. Afterwards she thinks, "What had she been thinking, defending a Jew? She must be going mad." When Reinhard mocks her the next morning, Gretchen recognizes the truth about what she did. "Her original intention had been to prevent an illegal street beating that might reflect poorly on the Party. Once she had seen the Jew lying on the ground, helpless...She had seen a person. Not a monster."

After finding Dearstyne's diary and being in close contact with Daniel on his bike, Gretchen notes that,
"Until she had seen the Hasidic man in the alley, she hadn't looked at a Jewish male, not really looked at him...
They were nothing like she had been taught.
If she and her people were mistaken about the Jews,  then they were mistaken about everything...Uncle Dolf and Papa couldn't be wrong. Could they?"
When Gretchen seeks out Daniel after being badly beaten by Reinhard, he openly welcomes her to his home. She notes "He was nothing like the monster she had been taught about. He was human." Eventually Gretchen falls in love with Daniel and tells him she accepts everything about him including the fact that he is Jewish.

But Gretchen's journey isn't just about her change of heart regarding the Jews, it is also her discovery about the true nature of the National Socialist Party and their plans for Germany, and about Hitler's frightening mental illness. Blankman does refer to Hitler having suffered from hysterical blindness, a claim that continues to be disputed to this day. Hitler claimed to have lost his eyesight due to a mustard gas attack. However, it's more likely he had mental disorder that resulted in temporary blindness. Recently discovered correspondence between two American doctors,  Dr. Victor Gonda and Foster Kennedy in 1943 reveals that both were told by a German neurosurgeon, Otfried Foerster, that his examination in 1932 of Adolph Hitler's medical war records showed that he was suffering from "hysterical amblyopia" . Hitler's medical file at Pasewalk Military Hospital in Germany was destroyed during the war so this new discovery is the only evidence at this time.

Reinhard also undergoes a personal journey but his is one that leads him deeper into mental illness. When Gretchen confronts him in the alleyway as he is about to beat a Jewish man, Gretchen is not scared of Reinhard hitting her because he never got his revenge that way but in other subtle ways. The morning after the altercation with the Jewish man, Reinhard places a string across a step on the stairway in an attempt to trip her. Gretchen notices that her brother often has a blank stare and seems unable to feel emotions. His transition is complete when he brutally beats her without emotion in an attempt to learn why she entered his bedroom. This only leads him to more brutal acts of violence including the cold blooded murder of an elderly man.

There are many other characters in Prisoner of Night and Fog who are quite interesting, for example Geli Raubal and Eva Braun. Geli's mysterious death has been the subject of many articles through the years including Hitler's Doomed Angel by Ron Rosenbaum for Vanity Fair while Eva Braun has been the focus of much study as she was Hitler's mistress and wife.

Blankman's emphasis is mostly on her characters and their relationships to each other but she does manage to contrast the ambivalence of most citizens towards Hitler while demonstrating his growing support within the city of Munich and in Germany overall. More than once Gretchen remarks on how oblivious people are to the coming disaster. After she and Daniel overhear two party members discussing how the Jews will lose their businesses and have their families broken apart, Gretchen notes,
"Bluesy jazz music cascaded from a nightclub, and men in fancy suits and women in satin frocks strolled the street, arm in arm, smiling, out for a night on the town. Everywhere the city was alive, all these sweet, simple lives twining together. How blind everyone was, rushing into the restaurants, laughing at the comedians' jokes, smoking and dancing and singing. Without the slightest inkling of what Hitler and his men were planning."

Prisoner of Night and Fog is a well-written novel. Blankman so named her novel after Goethe's poem, "Der  Erlkonig", the Alder King in which a young boy attempts to warn his father that he is being attacked, but his father assures him it is only the fog. It is an allegory for what happened to the German people with regards to Hitler. The sequel to Prisoner of Night and Fog is Conspiracy of Blood & Smoke which is set in 1933.

Book Details:
Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman
New York: Balzer & Bray, An Imprint of HarperCollin Publishers 2014
398 pp.