Unbreakable. The Spies Who Cracked the Nazi's Secret Code by Rebecca E. F. Barone

Unbreakable tells the remarkable story of how the British, French and Polish worked to break the Enigma code, helping the Allies to win World War II.

The story opens in Warsaw, Poland in 1929.  A "heavy package with a German postmark" arrived at the Polish customs office. Almost immediately, an urgent request came in from the German embassy to return the package which should never have been sent to Poland as it was intended for a German recipient. His curiosity piqued, the Polish customs officer opened the package and found what at first glance looked to be a typewriter. However, there was no ribbon, no carriage to hold paper like a regular typewriter. There were keys which when pressed lit up one of the small circular windows arranged in rows at the top. The Polish customs officer called the Polish cipher agency and two men arrived to examine the machine. Over the weekend they took the machine apart, examined it and reassembled it. It was repackaged and returned to Germany, the delay being that it was the weekend.

Two years later on November 1, 1931, Hans-Thilo Schmidt met up with Rodolphe Lemoine, in the Grand Hotel in Verviers, Belgium. Schmidt was an assistant to the head of the Germain cipher office while Lemoine was the top recruiter and handler for the Deuxieme Bureau of the French military intelligence. Germany had developed a new cipher that no one in the world was able to break. They were using a machine called the Enigma to create the code and it was unbreakable.  Schmidt told Lemoine that he had access to all the information pertaining to Enigma and could give it to France, for a price. When Schmidt began bringing information to France, Captain Gustave Bertrand, a senior officer and a code breaker became involved. The initial information Schmidt brought was not helpful to either the French or the British in solving the Enigma problem. 

Undaunted, Bertrand travelled to Warsaw, Poland in December, 1931 to meet with Major Gwido Langer, head of the Polish cipher office, in the hopes the Polish and French might work together. Bertrand gave Langer the Enigma manuals and instructions that Schmidt had passed along. Langer was ecstatic because up to this point they had been unable to crack Enigma and he had high hopes this new information would help.

 

The Enigma was complex machine in which an electrical signal passed from the keyboard to a plugboard connected to pairs of letters and then to three (or more) rotors and onto a reflecting drum which sent the signal back through the rotors, plugboard to a window at the top of the machine with a letter. Each letter in a message when through this encryption. In order to decode the message, the settings in the Enigma machine of the receiver had to be the same as those of the sender's Enigma. The daily indicator settings for the rotors consisted of three letters, one for each rotor that gave the starting angle for each rotor were sent TWICE at the beginning of the message, unencrypted. These daily settings were called the key.

Meanwhile in Germany in November, 1932 political events were beginning to move quickly. Adolf Hitler had been arrested for the Munich Beer Hall Putsch years ago in 1924 on charges of high treason. He was given a lenient nine month sentence during which time he wrote his infamous Mein Kampf. In this book, Hitler outlined his plans to recover Germany's glory and eliminate the Jews and Polish people whom he considered "inferior races". Germany's problems were all due to the presence of Jews in the country and the world. In the following years, Hitler began to spread his message throughout Germany, that certain races and religions were responsible for the dire economic situation in the country. His political power grew until the Nazis held almost a third of the seats in the German government.

In November, 1932, in Warsaw, Poland, Langer's cipher staff were unsuccessful so he decided to try a new approach: he hired electronics expert Antoni Palluth, one of the two men who had examined the missing Enigma in 1929 and built a replica. He brought along Maksymilian Ciezki, head of the German section of the Polish cipher office. These two men brought in three young mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki. Langer's approach changed from linguistics to mathematics and it paid off. 

Working on his own, Rejewski initially had no success using variables and developing mathematical equations that explained how changes to the rotors or the plugboard affected one another. But then Schmidt gave Bertrand "...a photocopy of two tables of the keys for September and October, 1932". Bertrand passed these on to Langer who gave them to Ciezki and then to Rejewski.  At first it seemed like these did not help either, but then Rejewski decided to make a different guess about the Enigma keyboard which was arranged similar to that of a typewriter except adapted for the German language. Instead he wondered if the letters on the typewriter keys were arranged in alphabetical order. When he did this, all his equations worked and the Poles were able to read the German Enigma! It was January, 1933.

But the Polish ciphers had their work cut out for them. With Germany preparing for war, German military and civilian groups, each called a "net", were now using Enigma to send messages. Each net began using different keys and the Polish cipher team had to break each key for each net every day. This exhausting work went on for five years at Saxon Palace in Warsaw. As tensions increased between Germany and Poland, Langer decided to move the cipher team to the Kabaty Woods, ten miles outside of Warsaw to a new built complex called "the Gale". The code breaking continued but was so tedious that Rejewski developed a machine called a bomba, with switches and rotors "that could run through all the combinations from a known rotor starting point."

In Germany the situation continued to worsen.  In March, 1938, Lemoine was picked up the Gestapo and released, German troops crossed into Austria in the Anschluss, the Annexation of Austria, and in September 1938, the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany. Then in December, 1938, the Germans increased the number of rotors used in Enigma making determining the keys very difficult. 

The English and French still did not know the Polish had been able to read Enigma and their efforts were unsuccessful. Their meeting in Paris, France with the Polish revealed nothing. After Germany invaded Prague Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Slovakia, Alastair Denniston (head of British codebreaking) and Alfred Dillwyn Knox met with Bertrand, Langer and the Polish cipher team. There they learned that the Poles had broken Enigma years earlier and they obtained a replica of Enigma.

With the British, French and Polish codebreakers struggling to catch up and find a way to break open Enigma, open war began with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. As British codebreakers took up the task of deciphering Enigma, the British navy also set about obtaining any information they could from captured weather boats and sinking U-boats. The race was on to defeat Enigma and win the war.

Discussion

 

Unbreakable is the riveting account of the race by the Allies to unlock the German's Enigma coding machine. Barone masterfully guides her readers through this complex story that involves so many people, some of whom lost their lives to the cause.

Barone pieces together the contributions many Polish, French and British made in the race to break Enigma. Barone, in her Epilogue writes, 

"Breaking the naval Enigma was a testament to teamwork. There was not one hero, not even on team of heroes. The Enigma story played out over the course of more than a decade, with action spread throughout almost a dozen countries: Polish cryptologists worked early and long to crack the Enigma cipher; French and German spies and agents provided intelligence; British codebreakers took up the puzzle; naval ships and sailors seized codebooks from the U-boats; intercept stations relayed messages; and Wrens at the bombes actually ran the machines."

Her cast of characters includes not just the codebreakers like the Polish team of Rejewski, Zygalski, Rozycki, Langer, Ciezki and Palluth, and the British team of Alan Turing who developed the "cryptological bombe", Harry Hinsley, Hugh Alexander, and Gordon Welchman who devised a way to configure the wiring of Turing's bombe, and Joan Clarke. Many others took risks that sometimes cost them their lives. There were the over sixteen hundred "Wrens" (Women's Royal Navy Service) whose task was to operate and maintain the more than two hundred bombes, a physically challenging task that could easily cause a short circuit. There was Gunner "Florrie" Foord who rescued a bag containing "cribs"  and plugboard settings that allowed Turing to set his bombe to work solving the naval Enigma. And there was First Lieutenant Tony Fasson and sailor Colin Grazier who rescued codebooks from the sinking U-boat U-559 at the expense of their lives, codebooks that ultimately broke the naval Enigma. 

Unbreakable manages to explain the workings of Enigma and how it was deciphered in a way that is understandable and engaging to readers. It was a complicated machine and breaking it was not a one step task, but involved many attempts and innovations by the codebreakers.  The story is broken up into four parts, with short chapters, focusing on a single topic with some black and white photographs. Some chapters focus on events while others on specific individuals such as Joan Clarke.

Barone includes an Epilogue in which she informs readers as to the fate of some of the individuals she focused on, a detailed Timeline of events beginning in 1929, and extensive Bibliography for further research. There are also Endnotes providing sources to quotes used throughout the text.

Unbreakable is a fascinating account of the efforts of codebreakers, military men, and spies to crack Enigma which was considered unbreakable by the Germans. 

Book Details:

Unbreakable: The Spies Who Cracked the Nazi's Secret Code by Rebecca E.F. Barone
New York: Henry Holt and Company   2022

260 pp.

Under The Iron Bridge by Kathy Kacer

Fifteen-year-old Paul Ritter lives in the Unterbilk suburb of Dusseldorf with his parents. His mother is an obstetrician at St. Martin's hospital in the city center while his father is an orthepedist who specializes in bone and joint disorders. It is August, 1938, and Hitler now rules Germany with an iron fist. He has annexed Austria and will likely take over other countries too. In Dusseldorf, flags with swastikas fly over every building. Hitler's picture can be found in businesses, department stores and even Paul's classroom. 

Most boys Paul's age belong to the Hitler Youth. It was the best thing his friend Harold Becker felt he had done. But Paul doesn't want to join. "The Hitler Youth was the official organization of the Nazi party and brought boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen together and trained them to eventually become part of the military that served Adolf Hitler." Paul once belonged to the Boy Scouts but that group has now been banned. 

As they walk home from school, Paul confronts Harold, questioning him about Hitler's views on the Jewish people. Harold doesn't like what Hitler says but isn't really concerned. However, Paul's parents have taught him that all people are equal and that what is happening to the Jewish people is wrong. 

The next day, Paul's teacher, Herr Bentz, continues to indoctrinate the class with false ideas about the Jewish people. Paul knows these ideas are false because he has a good friend, Analia Morgenstern who lives in the Kasernenstrasse district of Dusseldorf. Paul and Analia have been friends since childhood: she attended his school and they often ate lunch together. But with the new laws, Analia has had to leave school. In class, one boy, Ernst Wagner states that he would turn in his own parents if necessary. Each day students speak up, informing on those who help Jews or criticize Hitler. After Herr Bentz corners Paul, questioning him as to why he hasn't yet joined the Hitler Youth, he reluctantly decides to join. 

The meetings are held every Saturday morning across the Oberkassel Bridge, in a fairground. Paul finds the entire experience disturbing: lots of swastika flags and the message that they are being prepared to be soldiers. As Paul and Harold return home from the meeting, they argue about the merit of joining the Hitler Youth. Harold believes that Hitler has done so much for Germany but Paul responds that he jails those who don't agree with him and treats the Jewish people badly. When the two boys witness their classmate Ernst's parents being led away by the Gestapo, they realize he has done exactly as he bragged he would do in class, he has reported them.

On the weekend, Paul's parents decide he needs to join the Hitler Youth in order to protect himself and his family. Paul finds the meetings draining emotionally. Then one weekend, the boys in their group are forced to jump over a fire to prove their bravery. Although Paul, who is athletic is able to do this, Harold is not and his leg is badly burned. But Paul's success only serves to attract the attention of the youth leader, Franz as well as their school bully, Ernst. 

Paul's life changes unexpectedly through a chance meeting the following weekend. Distraught over what he's experiencing in the Hitler Youth, Paul rides his bike to the beach at Lake Kaarst where he has fond memories of times spent with Analia. There he overhears a song against Hitler and eventually meets a group of young people who turn out to be resisters. They tell him their group is part of the Edelweiss Pirates, a group with members throughout Germany. They are doing what they can to resist and to stop Hitler.

Paul meets brother and sister, Luka and Kikki who are in charge of this group and decides that he too wants to join. Paul decides not to tell his parents that he's involved in the Edelweiss Pirates. However, as the situation in Germany rapidly deteriorates, Paul finds himself drawn further into resistance and less able to pretend he's a Nazi. He is forced to make a choice: follow the Nazis and their brutal regime, or begin to really help people like Analia.

Discussion

Under The Iron Bridge focuses on one group of Nazi resistors, the Edelweiss Pirates. It's likely the Pirates, which were mostly found in western Germany, began sometime after membership in the Hitler Youth was made mandatory in 1936. Almost every city in western Germany had some time of resistance group, although they sometimes had different names.

The pressure on young people to conform to Nazi ideals was tremendous. Boys were expected to join the Hitler Youth, while girls were expected to belong to the League of German Girls. As Kacer writes in the novel, "The girls underwent physical training that included long hours of marching and hiking, just like the boys. Hitler wanted young German girls to be strong and fit, even though they weren't being groomed to be soldiers." As Kikki tells Paul, they are to be mothers who pass on Nazi values to their children. While many German youth held similar views to the character in the novel, Ernst Wagner, who turns in his own parents to the Gestapo, there were young Germans like Paul's friend, Harold who simply went along with what was happening because they were probably too afraid to resist.

Initially Paul believes "It was better to be seen going along with the others than to keep resisting." He is afraid that he will be informed on by one of his fellow students. However, as the situation for the Jewish people in Dusseldorf becomes more threatening, Paul finds it harder to "go along". When he and his Hitler Youth group are pressed into forcing Jews to scrub the pavement, Paul does nothing. This is especially painful, because within this group is his dear friend Analia. He experiences shame that she likely believes he holds the same views as the other boys.

The Pirates offer Paul a chance to act according to his conscience. At first these acts are small, but dangerous; painting slogans on a Nazi building. This earns him the Edelweiss pin. "His cheeks glowed and his eyes sparkled as he thought of Analia. There was no question that a part of him was doing this for her. But he was also doing it for the old Jewish man who had very nearly been beaten, and for all the other Jews who had been humiliated that day on the streets of Dusseldorf. And above all, he was doing this for himself, affirming hid desire and responsibility to be a good and moral person, no matter what the risk."

Paul proves that he's up to the risk, when he drops food off for Analia and her family, when he partakes in a mission to wreck the Gestapo cars, and when he distributes pamphlets at the train station. But he takes the biggest risk of all, in saving Analia during what comes to be known as Kristallnacht, "Night of Broken Glass". 

Kacer realistically portrays the different responses of German youth to Nazi ideology. through the characters of Paul, Harold and Ernst. Paul has been taught that all people are equal and knows the Nazi views of Jews is wrong. Harold also believes what is being taught to them is wrong but he struggles to reconcile what he knows to be right with his participation in the Hitler Youth. Deeply conflicted he tells Paul, "But what are we supposed to do?....We have to be part of the Hitler Youth. We have to obey the rules. You saw them take away Ernst's parents. I don't want that to happen to my family --or yours!" While Harold believes resistance is impossible, Paul is not so sure. He's not willing to accept that they can do nothing. And then there is Ernst who represents most German youth. Ernst is an avid Nazi. In class when Ernst Wagner states that he would turn in his own parents, Paul notes that only a few students looked uncomfortable with this idea

Under The Iron Bridge is another excellent novel by Canadian author Kathy Kacer. In her Author's Note at the back of the novel, Kacer informs readers on many different topics and events covered in her story including Kristallnacht, The Hitler Youth and the Edelweiss Pirates. The novel takes its title from the iron bridge the Pirates used as a secret meeting place from which to plan their acts of resistance. Look for more outstanding novels from Kacer in the future.

Book Details:

Under The Iron Bridge by Kathy Kacer
Toronto: Second Story Press    2021
222 pp.

White Rose by Kip Wilson

The White Rose is a historical novel about the White Rose resistance group formed by a group of medical students and a professor out of the University of Munich in the early 1940's. The group included Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, Kurt Huber, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell and Professor Christoph Probst as well as others. After the defeat of German forces in the Battle of Stalingrad, with millions of wounded and dead, with the ongoing annihilation of Jewish citizens of Germany and other occupied countries, the destruction of the Polish aristocracy and forced labour, the White Rose group hoped to prick the consciences of their fellow Germans into rebelling. Sadly their resistance brought them only death. By 1943, it was too little too late for the German people who were completely under the control of  the Nazis. It would be two more years before the Nazi regime would be brought to its knees by the Allies.

The novel opens with a section title "The End" on February 18, 1943 with Sophie and Hans having been taken to Gestapo headquarters where they are both being interrogated by Herr Mohr. Sophie naively believes she will be able to lie her way out of this dire situation.

The story then backtracks in a section titled "Before", to 1935 where fourteen-year-old Sophie enjoys life in Ulm with her four siblings Inge, Hans, Liesl and Werner. Her family has lived in Ulm in a rented flat in a building owned by Jakob Guggenheimer who is a Jewish businessman. Sophie's aim is to become "...the most of me" and "...the best of me". Sophie dreams of being a noble person. 1935 also sees the Fuhrer decree that young Germans must complete a mandatory six months of service.

In 1937 Hans leaves for Gopping for the Reichsarbeitsdienst to complete his labour service. Signs begin appearing, on bridges, in parks and on German Jewish storefronts, indicating that Jews arse not welcome. The Scholl's home is raided by the Gestapo and Inge and Werner are arrested. So is Hans on his military base. Hundreds of teenagers throughout Germany are also arrested, accused of being involved in illegal youth group. Inge and then Werner are released, but Hans is not. Eventually Hams is acquitted in 1938.

By 1938, Sophie begins to see the changes in Nazi Germany. She is glad to leave Ulm during a summer trip.
"escape
from the once overwhelming
civilization of Ulm, now
eroding
at its very
foundation with
        soft music turned harsh
        beloved books burned
        true art marked degenerate,
all hints that a terrible future
presses close,..."

Meanwhile returning to "The End", Sophie continues to be interrogated as Robert Mohr is determined to catch Sophie and Hans.

In 1939, Hans is now in Munich studying medicine and Sophie's boyfriend Fritz is away training soldiers. Although he's enjoying university, Hans knows the Reich doesn't value the knowledge they are learning. Instead it just wants the young men for war. Because Sophie's father is doing well in his business, he moves the family to a larger home on Munsterplaz.

1940 sees the Blitzkrieg in progress as Germany marches through Luxembourg to France. Sophie attempts to get her male friends to promise not to fire their weapons, to refuse to follow the Fuhrer blindly. A letter from Hans in May reveals that German soldiers are commandeering the best homes in France, making him feel like they are thieves. In July he writes about the casaulties. At this time Sophie begins to hear rumours of disabled children being deliberated killed in vans with poison gas. She wonders,
"Yet what can anyone
do
to stop it?"
She feels ignoring this would be cowardly.

In 1941, Sophie attempts to circumvent the Reichsabeitsdienst with teacher training. Instead, she is sent to Krauchenwies labor camp, with its forced ideology lessons and constant work. In May, Sophie is energized by the sermon of Bishop August Von Galen who reminds the German people that deliberating killing is murder and punishable by death. Von Galen's sermon is circulated as leaflets, giving Sophie hope people will act. In September, Jews are ordered by Reinhard Heydrich to wear the yellow Star of David. Shortly afterwards, rumours begin about Jews from Ulm being deported out of Germany. Sophie wonders where they are being sent.Sophie and her family refuse to participate in the collection drive for the Wehrmacht. She worries and prays for her brothers to survive the war.

1942 sees Sophie finishing her labor service in Blumberg and then entering university. Possibly inspired by Bishop Von Galen, Sophie asks Fritz to help her get money and a voucher for a duplicating machine. In Munich, Sophie is both uplifted and determined to make a difference. She meets Alex a half-Russian, half German student, and Christoph and his wife Herta with two small children, Han's girlfriend Traute. Sophie is given a leaflet like Bishop Von Galen's, encouraging passive resistance. Sophie is convinced that the leaflet is the work of her brother Hans. Sophie resolves when her brother returns from the front, she will not be excluded.

Meanwhile in the present of February 19, 1943 Sophie denies knowing anything about mailing "treasonous leaflets" in Munich and other cities. But then Sophie learns that Hans has confessed and that they have evidence from their flat. This leads Sophie to admit that she and Hans did in fact spread the leaflets because
"The war for Germany
                is lost,
young lives
              sacrificed in vain..."
They wanted to inspire others to follow them.
Sophie begins to realize her situation is dire,
"There's no way
              out
of this cage."
  

Discussion

In her novel, White Rose, Wilson has crafted a  deeply moving account of the events that led to the arrest and execution of members of the White Rose resistance group in Germany in 1943. Initially Sophie Scholl believes she and Hans will survive the interrogation. Instead they are considered traitors and are dealt with harshly; sentenced to death. The tragedy of Sophie and Hans Scholl is that Sophie hoped their deaths would spark more resistance. But it proved to be too little too late. Only defeat in war would bring the down Hitler and end the mass killing. Within Germany many members of the resistance were hunted down and executed. The leaflets found their way out of Germany and into the hands of the Allies who dropped them over Germany. But by this time, the people of Germany were too afraid to confront the Nazi regime which now had complete power over all of the country. They could only wait for the Allies and Russia to overrun their country.

Wilson portrays Sophie as a young, honourable woman whose father, Vati instilled in her the ideals of  truth and justice and who was raised to be politically minded. Sophie is portrayed as a young person who sees her beloved country being destroyed from within and who longs for others to do something, for her fellow Germans to resist, but no one takes up the charge. It seems Bishop Von Galen's homily and the leaflets distributed afterwards are the impetus for Sophie taking action.

The story of the White Rose resistance group is told primarily from Sophie Scholl's perspective, in free verse. There are a few poems written in the voices of Jakob Schmid the custodian who saw Sophie and Hans with the fliers and who brought them to his superior, Roland Freisler the judge who condemns Sophie and Hans, Else Gebel a political prisoner who shared Sophie's jail cell, Robert Mohr the Gestapo investigator who interrogated Sophie. Wilson has divided events up sections titled  "Before" which relate the events that lead up to her and Hans capture at the University of Munich, "Day Zero" which is a section of poems about what happens at the university when the leaflets are released and "The End" which deal with her interrogation, sentencing and execution.

Wilson has done considerable research into White Rose and the Scholls as evidenced by her extensive list of sources, both in English and German at the back of the novel as well as primary sources in German. She also provides readers with a Glossary and a list of the people involved as well as what happened to them.

Novels like White Rose are important because they challenge young readers to consider the actions of real people like Hans and Sophie Scholl and to ask what they might have done if they had lived in this time. Sophie and Hans originally supported Hitler and were eager to join the youth groups. But they quickly became disillusioned when they saw what policies and ideas these groups were promoting.  Many of the issues that Sophie experienced are issues are similar to ones we face today; we live in an era of unprecedented propaganda and fake news, where inaccurate content can be created and spread quickly, where voices different from the accepted social/political narrative can be deplatformed and where even facts often don't hold sway.

White Rose is a well-written novel that is highly recommended. Although Sophie and Hans Scholl's deaths did not lead to the uprising she hoped, they are remembered today as one of the few voices that stood alone against the Nazi regime. And that is no small accomplishment.

For more information on the White Rose resistance group readers are directed towards these resources:

A Noble Treason: The story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Revolt Against Hitler by Richard Hanser

Sophie Scholl and the White Rose by Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn


United States Holocaust Memorial Museum


Book Details:

White Rose by Kip Wilson
New York: Versify, an imprint of  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co.     2019
358 pp.

We Will Not Be Silent by Russell Freedman

We Will Not Be Silent tells the story of the White Rose Student Resistance Movement, formed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany. This group, formed to motivate and inspire the German people to rise up against Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) party, was founded by Hans Scholl, his younger sister Sophie and their friend Christoph Probst.

The Scholls led a relatively idyllic life growing up in the small town of Ulm on the Danube River. Their family consisted of their parents, Robert and Magdalene and five siblings; Inge, Hans, Elizabeth, Sophie and Werner. The children loved their country with its beautiful landscapes and rich culture.

Robert Scholl was not a supporter of either the Nazi party nor of Hitler. Nor was he supportive when Hans and his other children all joined the Hitler Youth Movement. Robert saw through Hitler's promises to make Germany a great nation and knew they would destroy the country. But his children were. Although membership was first voluntary, it eventually "became mandatory for all boys and girls of proven 'Aryan' descent." Hans thrived at first in the Hitler Youth, enjoying the outdoor activities and comraderie. His leadership skills resulted in him being quickly promoted to squad leader.

In 1935, a huge Nazi Party rally was held in Nuremberg, complete with a speech by Adolf Hitler. Sixteen-year-old Hans Scholl was given the honor of carrying the flag for the Ulm Hitler Youth Contingent. However, this rally marked a turning point for Hans who returned to Ulm disillusioned by the rhetoric and indoctrination of his peers. He soon lost his position as a squad leader after being caught reading a banned book and a fight with another leader over the use of a flag one of Han's boys created for their group. Instead, he joined the Deutsche Jungendschaft (German Boys' League) or d.j.1.11 which was outlawed in 1936 when membership in the Hitler Youth became mandatory.

Soon Sophie too became disillusioned. Her path was similar to that of Hans; she was a squad leader in the Bund Deutscher Madel (League of German Girls) and was caught reading a banned book. Sophie also refused to abandon her friendships with Anneliese Wallersteiner and Luise Nathan, two Jewish classmates and close friends.

Hans, Sophie and Christoph, Munich 1942. All were later executed.

The troubles for the Scholls began in 1937 when fifteen-year-old Werner and his sisters Inge and Sophie were arrested in a crackdown by the Gestapo on dissident youth groups. Their parents were shocked that children would be arrested and also because Inge and Sophie were held for a week. Hans, who was serving his two years of compulsory military service in a German cavalry unit in Stuttgart, was also arrested, placed in solitary confinement and interrogated for five weeks. Eventually all charges were dismissed.

In 1938, as conditions in Germany continued to deteriorate and Hitler secretly prepared for all out war, Hans entered medical school. In 1940, Sophie graduated high school and attempted unsuccessfully to circumvent the mandatory six months duty with the Labor Service by working as a kindergarten teacher. Finally in 1942, Sophie joined Hans at Munich University, studying philosophy and biology. She soon joined Hans and his circle of friends which included Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Will Graf. Although they spent time doing typical things like reading and recommending books, they often discussed the repressive political climate in Germany and what was happening in the war. The reports of death camps, mass murder of Jewish citizens along with the disappearance of many Jewish friends and neighbours were deeply troubling.

When Roman Catholic bishop, Clemens A. Graf von Galen publicly denounced the Nazi's brutal euthanasia program, Hans was impressed. Hans and his friends decided the time had come  to take a stand. It was a decision that would prove costly to Hans, Sophie and many others but be remembered as deeply heroic.

Discussion

We Will Not Be Silent is a well written account that takes young readers through the events that led to the formation of the White Rose student resistance group, their brave acts of resistance against the Nazi regime, and finally to the capture and execution of Hans and Sophie Scholl and other group members.

Freedman does an excellent job of describing the Scholl's early years, providing insight as to how their deep love of their fatherland was one of the motivating factors in their decision to begin to passively resist the Nazi regime.At the same time, Germany's descent into tyranny is portrayed in a way that encourages younger readers to consider what life under Nazi rule must have been like.

Freedman portrays the complicated and terrible situation Germans now found themselves in after the infamous night of November 9, 1938. Known as Kristallnacht, mobs attacked Jews, breaking in to homes and shops, vandalizing and destroying them, beating and killing Jews and burning synagogues. "Many Germans were shocked by the brutality of the attacks. Some turned their faces away from the wreckage and wept. But the iron grip of the Nazi regime stifled any meaningful opposition. One newspaper ridiculed the 'softhearted squeamishness' of those who expressed sympathy for Jewish victims of the violence. Most Germans kept their opinions to themselves. 'The cowed middle classes stared at the Nazi monster like a rabbit at a snake,' wrote one German observer."

It was this Nazi monster that Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie and their student friends decided to confront. Hans felt it was "preposterous" that they were studying to heal people when the state was killing them by the thousands. And so they began creating anti-Nazi leaflets that encouraged the German people to "put up as fierce a fight as possible;" and to "Offer resistance - resistance- wherever you may be...before it is too late;" The series of leaflets also focused on calling to the German people's attention, the atrocities being committed in German occupied countries. Freedman lays out the dangers Hans, Sophie, Willi, Alex and others were courting just by this simple resistance.

We Will Not Be Silent portrays the tremendous courage Hans and Sophie Scholl and other resistance members displayed when finally caught, and interrogated by the Gestapo. Knowing she likely faced death, Sophie challenged the chief Gestapo interrogator, Robert Mohr, telling him, "I would do it all over again -- because I'm not wrong...You have the wrong worldview." As Sophie predicted, what they did, made waves. The White Rose leaflets continued after the execution of the Scholls and many others, even finding their way to London where the British reproduced them and dropped them by the thousands on German cities.

Freedman's account of the White Rose Resistance Movement is both moving and timely. Reader's can't help but be deeply touched by the innocence, integrity, courage and determination of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Their resistance was not violent, but peaceful and passive - an attempt to reveal the truth in a country overwhelmed by lies.

Like the miracle of St. Denis, who continued to preach the truth even while carrying his decapitated head, the truths Hans and Sophie Scholl were trying to tell their countrymen, continued to be told even after they too were beheaded.

We Will Not Be Silent is a must read for those studying war, resistance movements and the heroes of World War II. Russell Freedman included many black and white photographs from the era, which help younger readers place the events in proper context. There is a listing of Source Notes and an Index at the back. Well written, deeply moving and inspirational.


Resources:

From the Jewish Virtual Library: Holocaust Resistance: The White Rose - A Lesson In Dissent by Jacob G. Hornberger

From the National Catholic Register: Remembering Sophie Scholl's Witness by Jay Copp

Image Credit: https://beastproduction.eu/the-white-rose-die-weise-rose/

Book Details:

We Will Not Be Silent by Russell Freedman
New York: Clarion Books     2016
104 pp.

Stolen Secrets by L.B. Schulman

Livvy's mother, Gretchen has dragged her across the continental United States from Vermont to a new life in San Francisco. Livvy leaves behind her home with its beautiful backyard in Vermont, her friends that she's known since preschool and Sean, her first boyfriend. Her mother, a recovering alcoholic leaves behind her AA sponsor, Tom.

However it's soon apparent things are not what they seem. A friend texts Livvy to tell her that a help-wanted sign has been posted at her mother's old job, Gourmet City where she supposedly was laid off.  Her mother also seems to know her way around San Francisco quite well and she knows exactly which bus Livvy needs to take to get to her new school. Then on Livvy's first day of school, she watches from their apartment window as her mother. supposedly on her way to a job interview, scraps the resumes Livvy's printed out for her job interview, tossing them into the garbage bin.

Although she attempts to follow her mother, Livvy soon loses her in the streets of San Francisco and is forced to rush to school. On her first day at Grant High, Livvy meets Franklin D. Schiller, who introduces himself in their Algebra 2 class. It turns out Franklin D, as he likes to be called, is also in Livvy's International Debate class. Franklin D. decides he likes Livvy and sets out to try to win her over.

After school Livvy decides to check out 2846 Fillmore, the address she found on a sticky note, believing this to be the location of her mother's interview. Livvy discovers the address is not a business but a yellow Victorian house, occupied by an elderly lady. Her mother is there but soon leaves. Puzzled over her mother's presence at the house, Livvy goes to the front porch and meets the elderly woman and tells her that she saw her mother at the house. This leads the woman to remark that Livvy looks like her father, Lee Newman but not like her mother Gretchen and introduces herself as Adelle Pfeiffer. She invites Livvy in for tea and tells her that she has hired Gretchen to do odd jobs. Confused by Adelle's strange answers and random statements, Livvy eventually runs out of the house.

Back in their apartment, Livvy confronts her mother over the lies and tells her she met her grandmother whom she thought was dead. Her mother admits that Adelle is her mother, telling her that she moved to San Francisco because she was afraid she would be cut out of her mother's will if she didn't help care for her. Her mother's lawyer has arranged for Gretchen and Livvy to be paid a stipend and living expenses. Another caregiver, Vicki has been hired to work at night. Gretchen warns her daughter not to get involved with her grandmother who has a cruel streak. However, Livvy wants to get to know Adelle on her own terms.

At school Franklin D. continues to pursue Livvy inviting her to join him at lunch, but she declines giving the false excuse of having a prom planning meeting. Nevertheless Franklin D. remains persistent, even when Livvy provides numerous excuses. Finally she relents and begins eating with Franklin D. and his eclectic friends.

Livvy's mother refuses to tell her much about her grandmother or why she stopped visiting her when she was in college. Feeling guilty about staying away, Livvy decides to visit her one day. She notices a mezuzah, an ornamental box to hold a copy of verses from the Torah, on the door frame. This makes Livvy wonder if her grandmother is Jewish. During this visit, Adelle speaks a few words of German and mumbles about not being able to escape. When Livvy returns to her apartment, she discovers her mother has begun drinking again. Gretchen tells Livvy that caring for her mother with whom she has a poor relationship, with has triggered her relapse and she promises to call Tom. However, Livvy doesn't trust her mother and decides she will follow up with Tom on her own.

Livvy's time with her grandmother begins to raise more questions than answers. Her oma talks about journals, being a writer, about roll call and camp, being called Lazy Lillian by a sister she doesn't have. More random statements are made by Adelle including mentioning a place called Belsen, escaping on the last train and warnings to hide the jewelry. Livvy decides to search Belsen on her phone and discovers that Bergen-Belsen, was a women's concentration camp where Anne Frank and her sister Margaret died of typhus. The mystery about her grandmother begins to deepen.

At this time, Livvy's mother goes into crisis, having a serious alcoholic relapse that leads to her arrest and jailing for driving while impaired.  Tom travels to San Francisco and he and Gretchen tell Livvy that her mother will be returning to Vermont to do another session of rehab at Evergreen. Meanwhile Livvy is allowed to stay with her elderly grandmother, offering her the perfect chance to try to solve the mystery of her grandmother's past. With the help of Franklin D. who becomes more than just a friend, Livvy uncovers is a shocking past and a family secret that might explain her mother's serious problems but which also offers the possibility of forgiveness, recovery and redemption.

Discussion

Schulman's Stolen Secrets takes the tragic story of Anne Frank and imagines a fictional account of one woman's life as it intersects with Anne's. While Schulman was careful to craft a story  that "didn't invent a 'new' Anne Frank" her novel does include a fictional account of Anne's experience at Bergen Belsen. 

The novel, which  explores the issues of Alzheimers and alcoholism, also uses these illnesses as a means of driving the plot. Livvy's grandmother, Adelle Friedman has Alzheimers which allows Schulman to develop the mystery of her past.  Adelle's fragmented memories are mixed up between the truth of her identity and the identity she assumed at the end of the war but Livvy doesn't know this.  By having Adelle suffer from Alzheimer's, Schulman sets this character up as an unreliable narrator; her random statements to Livvy seem to suggest one thing, as do Adelle's short one or two page narratives in italics inserted between chapters. These short narratives tell of her time at Bergen-Belsen but they are vague enough to suggest to the reader the very opposite of what really happened. Eventually Livvy uncovers the unsettling truth.

Livvy's mother's alcoholism and her relapse set the stage for Livvy being left on her own and therefore being able, with the help of her new friend Franklin D., to investigate unhindered her grandmother's past. This also allows Livvy's friendship with Franklin D. to blossom. 

Bergen-Belsen at the time the camp was liberated.

Stolen Secrets is populated by a quartet of strong, well developed characters, the most appealing of which has to be Franklin D. Shiller. Franklin D. is eccentric, caring, and funny. Part of what makes this character so appealing is that he is part of a warm family and has caring, engaged parents - very unusual for young adult fiction. Franklin D. serves to provide some mild comic relief in what would otherwise be a dark novel.

In complete contrast, is Livvy's dysfunctional family; her parents are divorced with her father having run off with another woman to Australia (conveniently putting him out of the picture) and her alcoholic mother who has been sober for the past five years until her recent relapse. As is typical of alcoholic families, Livvy is forced to be the parent and care for her mother both physically and emotionally. This sets Livvy up as a sixteen-year-old, mature far beyond her years. Livvy is also unusual in that she loves facts and is gifted with a prodigious memory.

Just as her mother undergoes a journey of recovery in the novel, Livvy too experiences her own journey. With a mother who is very needy, Livvy hopes to establish a different relationship with the grandmother she believed to be dead. She's hoping her oma will be a heroine for her and quickly rushes to fit her into that identity. However, when Livvy discovers the truth about her grandmother's past, she feels angry and betrayed. She refuses to visit her oma's bedside. "Why should Oma have family at her bedside, stroking her hand, encouraging her to live? The Holocaust victims hadn't died with such love and care." 

But Livvy doesn't abandon her grandmother as her mother did. Instead of judging her grandmother "for her part in crimes against countless innocent people" Livvy decides to see her "as she had been, a girl around my age, who'd sold her soul to believe in a world of Hitler's creation-- one that promised jobs, solutions to economic problems, and a shiny new nation. A girl who'd ruined many lives, including her own." Livvy decides  "So in the end, I decided to accept Oma solely for who she was to me -- my grandmother. I was her last hope for absolution, the only person who could forgive her when she couldn't even forgive herself."  Livvy sitting by her dyig oma's bedside considers, "I weighed the facts one last time. My grandmother had made some horrific choices. But the reality was, I loved her in spite of it. Lifting her papery hand in mine, I bent down and kissed her cheek."

 Stolen Secrets is a very different novel that tackles many issues and yet works remarkably well. Well written, this novel is highly recommended.

Book Details:

Stolen Secrets by L.B. Schulman
Honesdale, Pennsylvannia: Boyds Mills Press   2017
302 pp.

Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali

Max is born on April 20, 1936, the same day as Adolf Hitler. He chooses that day as it will bring him the blessings of the Germanic gods.Max sees himself as the firstborn of the master Aryan race; he wants to be supple, lean, swift, hard and tough. He wants to hate rather than love. His mother, Frau Inge who is tall, blond and blue-eyed applied to be a Schwester (Sister) and underwent a series of detailed physical examinations. She had to prove she had no Jewish blood in her ancestry. His father was an SS officer who was paired with her.

Max is born in Steinhoring Home, on the outskirts of Munich. His birth, like those of the other babies in the Lebensborn program, is kept secret. Steinhoring was an asylum for mentally ill people but they were "relocated" - exterminated and the home was renovated. At birth Max too undergoes a detailed physical examination by SS-Oberfuhrer Gregor Ebner who, after taking numerous measurements, classifies him as being of the Nordic Aryan race. Max's mother is not allowed to hold him until he has passed the examination.

Max's mother, Frau Inge struggles after his birth as she is encouraged not to use endearing terms and he is often taken away from her. Max notes that there is a sort of "magic cord" between him and his mother that allows him to sense what she is feeling. A week after his birth, Max is christened by Adolf Hitler in a ceremony attended by Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler, Max Sollmann (director of the Lebensborn program), the Fuhrer's personal doctor, Dr. Karl Brandt and his wife Anni Rehborn, Dr. Ebner, along with the mothers from Steinhoring and other Lebensborn homes. Max's mother receives an autographed photograph of them with Hitler and Max is given the new name of Konrad von Kebnersol, a mix of Dr. Ebner's and Herr Sollmann's names.

Life at Steinhoring is unsettling. Max becomes upset when he witnesses babies being removed from the home by Josefa during the nights. One night after being tenderly hugged by his mother, Max hears his mother being escorted from the home, screaming and crying. This event results in Max becoming sickly as the "magic cord" that existed between him and his mother is no longer there. He also discovers that some of the babies in the nursery have been taken to Ward 15 in the Steinhof Institute in Vienna where they undergo experimentation and are ultimately euthanized. These children, who suffer from minor defects such as harelip (cleft palate), asthma and deafness are called "rabbits". This terrifies Max to the point that he decides to banish all memories of his mother and to force himself to accept the wet nurse.

The process of adopting the babies begins, and while other babies from the nursery are adopted, Max is repeatedly not chosen. One night he is kidnapped from the nursery by a woman who has escaped from a prison camp. This woman, Magda, saw her newborn baby, Maciej shot. Max remains with her for five days as she slowly starves to death. He is rescued in terrible condition. In an attempt to rehabilitate him emotionally as part of an experiment, Max is left alone and not comforted. "Even when I yelled my head off -- my arms outstretched so they'd open the door, so they'd come and hold me, cuddle me, comfort me -- no one ever came. "

Max Sollmann

As Max grows into early childhood, Germany goes to war. Max becomes "the perfect sample product" of the Lebensborn program. The mothers who come to Steinhoring looking to adopt want to cuddle him but are not allowed to do so. When he is four years old, Max is taken to  Poznan Poland where he is used as a lure to help the Nazis steal Polish children. Working with the "Brown Sisters", Max entices other children his age to tell him about their families and where they live. During the nights the SS soldiers visit the children's homes and kidnap them. Eventually Max is sent out with a Polish concentration inmate, Bibiana. The two are very successful and Max begins to bond with her as she holds his hand, hugs him and plays games with him. But when Max tells her that his mother is German and his father is the Fuhrer, Bibiana revolts and she is killed. This deeply upsets Max who struggles to eat and begins rocking himself. But things only go from bad to worse for Max as he is exposed to more and more depraved situations.

Max watches the SS soldiers have sex with the German prostitutes and rape the Polish women. He hides in the back of a truck and watches the SS soldiers kidnap Polish children from their homes. Soon he is recruited to take part in the hunt for blond, blue-eyed Polish children whom the SS can kidnap. After leading a group of children safely back to their mothers, Max cruelly reports them to the soldiers. At a party in his honour, the German prostitutes expose themselves to him and Max gets dangerously drunk on the left over liquor. At age six he is sent to Kalish, the SS Gaukinder Home which is the central district home of the Polish Lebensborn. There he sneaks out during the night to view both the boys and girls as they undergo the Nazi selection process by the doctors at the school. He also witnesses the murder of a boy he befriends. But when a Polish Jewish boy, Lucjan who is renamed Lukas by Dr. Ebner, arrives at the Lebensborn school, Max is about to discover everything he's been taught about people, life and the Third Reich is very different from reality.

Discussion

Max is a disturbingly explicit account of the Nazi's successful program to breed racially pure "Aryan" children for the Third Reich.  Known as the Lebensborn program, it was created in 1935 to increase Germany's declining population. However, only those who were considered  of Aryan descent, or "racially valuable" were recruited to the program. This eugenics program was committed to produce racially superior Germans. As the war dragged on and Germany experienced more and more casualties  the Lebensborn program resorted to the kidnapping of children from Nazi-occupied countries who appeared to be Aryan.

All the horrific details of the Lebensborn program are revealed in this novel through the use of omniscient first person narration of a child. The narration begins when Max is an unborn baby about to be born in 1936 through the war until the fall of Berlin in 1945. Max comes into the world, a die-hard Nazi, determined to fulfill his mission in life as a model Aryan. He's even willing to offer his life at birth should he not meet the Aryan standards. Fortunately for him, he passes and is allowed to be reunited with his mother. Soon Max experiences repeated traumas along with intense Nazi indoctrination that begin to shape him into a cold, calculating child. Can there be any kernel of love and compassion inside such a child? This is the question Cohen-Scali sets out to explore in her novel.

Baptism of Lebensborn child

Max's trauma begins immediately after birth and continues throughout his life. He is measured and examined for defects and soon his mother is removed from his life. This is "scary" for Max who simply wants to lie next to his mother and nurse. 

As babies with defects are removed from the nursery for experimentation, Max has nightmares and fears he will also be taken away and experimented on. When he is kidnapped from the Steinhoring nursery just before his first birthday in 1937 and is rescued five days later in serious condition, Max receives no comfort and is placed in quarantine - "I had to stay alone all day, locked in a room at the back of the building, so my crying wasn't heard." 

When Bibiana, is executed for rebelling against the kidnapping of Polish children, Max gets a "tummy ache" that won't go away. He stays alone and begins rocking himself. He experiences anger over Bibiana's rebellion and even dresses in the rags he used when with Bibiana because they retain some of her smell. 

After helping a few Polish children escape, Max experiences anger that these children have mothers who love them. Instead of helping them, Max decides that one of the boys "must become German" and turns them in. After Max's friend Wolfgang is murdered in cold blood in front of him for not saluting a German officer, he is unable to sleep, has nightmares and begins wetting the bed. Max is six years old when this happens. Without comfort, he uses the distraction of watching young girls being stripped and examined for the program at Kalish. In Berlin he witnesses more shootings, rapes and the murder of his friend.

All of these events, each shocking in its own right, show Max as a victim who struggles to protect himself by denying what's happening and by attempting to take some kind of control over his life. Despite his fear, and believing he is the vanguard of an Aryan nation destined to take over the world, Max views himself as a leader for his peers whom he refers to as his "buddies". He wants to be seen as "made of Krupp's steel." - a reference to the high quality steel produced in Germany by Krupp. As a result, he views any action that enhances the Aryan nation as acceptable in spite of his fear or even natural revulsion. 

After babies are removed from the nursery for experimentation, Max comes to believe this is acceptable for the success of the Third Reich. "I understand now that my buddies' sacrifice was essential in guaranteeing that the Reich's medical science is the finest in the world. Markus, Edith, Klaus, and all the "rabbits" from the other Homes can be proud because they will be contributing to great discoveries: vaccines against tuberculosis and typhus (diseases spread by Jews and Gypsies), medications to heal the wounds of our soldiers at the front...I know now that we make up a chain, every link of which, even the smallest is vital. The weak die so the strong can become invincible." 

The breaking of the bond between himself and his mother initially upsets Max but he comes to view this as making him stronger. "...no more magic cord! It no longer exists. I've cut the umbilical cord once and for all. My memory of Mother is fading...I can't remember her smell anymore, or the feeling of pressing against the soft pillow of her breasts. Soon I'll have forgotten she existed. Besides, I'm going to erase the word mother from my vocabulary."  As Max becomes the linchpin in the kidnapping of elite Polish children in order to Germanize them for the Third Reich, he believes this is necessary, "Such a brilliant idea! A bit like a blood transfusion. New blood for Germany, while weakening the enemy."

However, Max's view of the world is changed by his interactions with Lukas, a Polish Jew who physically is the Aryan ideal. This is a complete puzzle to Max who has been indoctrinated into the belief that all Jews look a certain way. Lukas tells Max that his mother was a beautiful, intelligent Polish woman who was educated and spoke French and German fluently. He was saved from the Jewish ghetto when his parents sent him away to be hidden by a non-Jewish Polish woman. Lukas's life was saved, his father and brother perished in the Jewish ghetto and his mother was sent to Treblinka. Lukas's story confuses Max, who begins to question what he's been told. "Perhaps Lukas's family didn't deserve it? Perhaps an exception should have been made for them? Perhaps there are good Jews? How do you know? At this point in my thinking, I admit that I'm lost..."

Max 's doubt is increased during biology class which is devoted to learning how to identify Jews based on physical characteristics. Lukas who is Jewish has none of the "identifying" characteristics. "But on the other hand, something wasn't quite right. If you wrote Lukas's statistics into the chart the teacher had given us at the beginning of the class, his would be identical to the Aryan measurements. Moreover, Lukas had the green racial fitness certificate. I wanted to tell the teacher everything, that Lukas was Jewish and Aryan -- so he could explain the contradiction to me, once and for all."  At the Napola Max is forced to another realization; "I'm surprised how, Polish or German, Aryan or not, we aren't that different. For the most part, my buddies here are just like the ones I had in Kalish. They have the same faults, especially the six-year-olds. It's hard for them to get up at 6:00 on the dot to go running...Hard to get dressed in a rush...Hard not to fall asleep in class."

Max believes his contact with Lukas is "de-Aryanizing" him. And yet when Lukas is sent to a munitions factory, Max experiences distress both over his absence and the fact that Germany is losing the war, leading him to begin cutting himself. When Lukas returns he is depressed, chain smokes and won't eat. Max cares for Lukas and learns the source of Lukas's turmoil when he tells him about the "Final Solution". "The events of the past few months have shown me that they don't tell us everything at the Napola. Information is filtered, altered. The things Lukas told me before he left for his training, things I refused to believe, have been proven to be true." All of this only deepens the conflict within Max and he begins to understand that he has been a part of something terrible.He decides to keep his bargain with Lukas and to tell his story in the orphanage in Bavaria.

Max is a very different historical novel, written from a unique perspective. Well worth the time if the reader is not familiar with the Lebensborn program. The character Max is fictional, however Lukas is based on Salomon Perel, who was able to pass himself off as Aryan and who survived the war. Max Sollmann, Gregor Ebner, and Johanna Sander were all real life people. The Author's Note at the back details more about these people and the Lebensborn program, as well as providing readers with follow-up material. Prospective readers should know that this book contains explicit sexual content. Because of the graphic violence and sexual content this novel it is recommended only for older teens and adults.

Image credits:

Gregor Ebner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Ebner#/media/File:Gregor_Ebner1.jpg

Max Sollman: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Sollmann#/media/Datei:Max_Sollmann_1.JPG

Baptism of Lebensborn child: https://library.mcmaster.ca/archives/virtualmuseum/mod5-1.html

Book Details:

Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali (translation from the French by Penny Hueston)
New York: Roaring Book Press 2017
421 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.

Auslander by Paul Dowswell

This novel tells the fictional story of a young boy, Piotr Bruck, who is taken by the Nazis to Berlin to become a reclaimed German. While Piotr may have the ideal Aryan features, he soon learns his heart and mind do not subscribe to the Aryan ideals of race.

The novel opens with Piotr undergoing a terrifying physical exam in Warsaw where he is singled out because of his ideal Aryan features of blonde hair and blue eyes. In flashback, the reader learns that thirteen year old Piotr lived with his mother and father on their farm outside of Warsaw. For a time after the Germans invaded Poland, they believed they were safe, even though their farm was situated between the Russians and Germans. But when Russian and Germany begin to carve up Poland, his parents were killed and Piotr was driven from his home by German troops. Homeless and hungry, Piotr ends up in an orphanage in Warsaw.

Returning to the present, Piotr is taken from the orphanage along with many other boys and after a physical exam in which his features are measured and examined, he is grouped together boys who are to be sent back to Germany. His blonde hair and blue eyes and his near perfect German mark him as being of German blood -volksdeutsche. He along with others judged to be volkdsdeutsche are taken by Doctor Fischer of the Race and Settlement Office who runs this eugenics program, to be Germanized.

Piotr is sent to the Lebensborn hostel in Landsberg to await adoption by a German family. Meanwhile, Doctor Fischer contacts Professor Franz Kaltenbach who lives in Berlin with his wife, Liese, and their three daughters, twenty year old Elsbeth, thirteen year old Traudl and eight year old Charlotte. He encourages the Kaltenbachs to take Piotr into their home to raise him as a German citizen despite Kaltenbach's reservations about Piotr's Polish ancestry. Kaltenbach's reluctance is based on his work for the Nazi party.

Kaltenbach works at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Dahlem-Dorft, Berlin where he has been nvolved in a number of tasks that dealt with eugenics and racial purity. He had to determine the racial purity of the children from the Ostarbeiters (Eastern workers from Poland) as well as confirm the authenticity of the Ancestral Passports of candidates for the SS. Kaltenbach achieved his post at the Institute after the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish academics.

When Piotr returns home to Berlin with the Kaltenbachs, he is renamed Peter and is expected to hold the same views as his foster family regarding Jews and Slavs as well as politically support the Nazis.Peter is uncertain as to what to believe because his parents were divided on supporting the Nazis.  At first it seems that Peter and the Professor will have as good relationship as they share an interest in aircraft. Excited to finally have a safe place to live, Peter joins the Hitler-Jugend, attends school and even begins to see a girl in his neighbourhood, Anna Reiter. Peter even dreams of one day becoming a Luftwaffe pilot.

But Peter's comfort zone is challenged by the reality of life in Berlin when he sees Polish boys, the Ostarbeiters,  being overworked and starved, when he finds he cannot accept the German's blind faith in Hitler and when the Nazis ban anything different from what the party deems acceptable. Torn between his disgust at what the Nazis are doing and his fear of working against, Peter must decide make a choice - one that could cost ultimately cost him his life.

Discussion

Told from the third person omniscient point of view, Auslander provides a unique look a life in Berlin during the Second World War. Although most of the narration is from Peter's point of view, Dowswell also includes the perspectives of many other characters in the novel including Anna, Ula and Otto Reiter, Gerhart Segur and Franz Kaltenbach. It is precisely the use of different narrators that gives this novel its balanced approach. There are German characters who are "one hundred percenters" - those who completely believe in the Nazi propaganda such as Professor Kaltenbach and his wife. The Reiters represent those Germans who did not agree with the Nazi racial policies and who worked to mitigate the suffering of the Jews and those who were part of the resistance. Also portrayed are those such as Elsbeth who originally supported the Nazis but when the learned the truth of what they were doing, tried desperately to extricate themselves. And then of course there were many German citizens such as Segur who were terrorized by the Nazis into betraying neighbours and friends.

The fanaticism of the Nazis is well portrayed in the novel and Dowswell includes parts of speeches and texts used by the Nazis to foment hatred against Jews and other ethnic groups deemed undesirable and to promote war. Dowswell captures the time period brilliantly, showing how beautiful and sophisticated Berlin was in 1941 and yet how poisoned its people were with the rabid ideology of genetics and race. This was initially deceiving to someone like Peter who did not yet recognize the iron grip the Nazis had on life in Germany. As the tide in the war begins to turn, the rationalization of German citizens and their reluctance to doubt the Nazis is demonstrated. Even the bombing of Berlin doesn't seem to sway them.

One of the major themes in the novel is that of identity. Because Peter has lost his parents, he dearly wants to fit into German society. It is a classic search for identity but one which is even more poignant because of his circumstances. Peter is not allowed to be himself, nor to express his own views about what is happening. Instead, whether he agrees or not with Nazi policy, he must conform to the Nazi way of thinking or risk being sent to a work camp or perhaps worse. Gradually, as Peter's eyes are opened to what the Nazis are doing to ordinary people simply because they are different, Peter comes to understand the price of conformity both personally and for the country. Despite being very conflicted he begins to resist in subtle secret ways that lead to him becoming part of the resistance and risking everything.

This novel is well written and thrilling from beginning to end with a likable male protagonist - something not found in many historical fiction novels. The author based the character of Ula Reiter on two German women who heroically defied the Nazi regime in Berlin during the war. He also explains the origins of some of the ideas, speeches and events portrayed in the novel in a note at the back of the novel. This is historical fiction at it's very best - effectively providing readers with a sense of what life was like during this terrible conflict.
Highly recommended.

Book Details:
Auslander by Paul Dowswell
London: Bloomsbury            2009
295 pp.

Documentary DVD: Orchestra of Exiles

Orchestra of Exiles recounts the efforts of  violin virtuoso, Bronislaw Huberman, to rescue the best Jewish musicians from prewar Germany and Europe to form a new orchestra in Palestine. It is a story few people outside the Jewish community remember. The documentary, which is 85 minutes in length, was written and directed by Josh Aronson, who himself is a renowned musician, a concert pianist, married to violinist Maria Bachmann.

Orchestra of Exiles begins by tracing the early musical formation of Bronislaw Huberman who was born into a poor Jewish family in 1882 in Czestochowa, Poland. Bronislaw's father was known for his bad temper but also for his passion for music. 

When Huberman was eight, his musical abilities were very much evident so his father took him to Berlin, Germany to find the best teacher and he began his studies the following year with Joseph Joachim.

In 1894, Huberman was invited to perform at Adelina Patti's farewell party and she gave him an outstanding review. His father stopped his lessons to start Huberman's career and Huberman achieved early fame at the age of 13 when he played the Brahms Violin Concerto in January of 1896. Brahms attended the concert and was so impressed he was moved to tears. Huberman played all over the world including America, Europe and Russia and he was soon acknowledged as a virtuoso.

The devastation of World War I changed Huberman, rousing his political consciousness and making him an ardent Pan-European, that is someone who believed in uniting all of Europe. He cancelled all his concerts for two years to study at the Sorbonne. During the interwar years, in 1922, the Pan-European movement which called for the unity of European states for peace was growing. In 1929, Huberman toured Palestine. He found the Jewish immigrants passionate for music but there was little culture. However, this was soon to change and that change was to be led by Huberman.

Huberman was stirred to action by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, in 1933. Hitler initiated his anti-Semitic views by firing Jewish artists, teachers and performers from the cultural institutions in Germany. This meant that thousands of Jewish musicians were out of work. Many with money and foresight left Europe. While others in the Jewish community felt that they could wait the situation out and that the hatred towards them would pass, Huberman understood what was going to happen in Germany and likely all over Europe.

As a result, Huberman cancelled all his concerts in Germany. In 1934, Joseph Goebels, Minister of Nazi Propaganda enacted a law allowing musicians to play in orchestras regardless of their race. Wilhelm Furtwangler who was conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic asked Huberman to reconsider but he declined as a way of protesting the Nazi regime. By 1935, every Jewish musician in the philharmonic was gone. Huberman left Germany and moved to Vienna, Austria. He stated: "I am a Jew, a Pole, a Pan-European and by each of these characteristics I am a dead enemy of Nazism."

Although Vienna was now his home, Huberman was stunned by the indifference of the Viennese when the Jews were attacked during anti-Semitic violence. Huberman realized that with many fine musicians being fired from world class orchestras, this would be the opportunity to bring them to Palestine to form a new orchestra that would bring culture to a people who hungered for it.

In 1936, the most famous musician in the world, Arturo Toscanini refused to perform in Germany and adamantly refused even a personal invitation from Adolf Hitler. When Huberman learned of this, he met Toscanini who volunteered to conduct the opening concerts of the new orchestra in Palestine. It would be an orchestra composed of exiles.

Huberman through his remarkable foresight, knew that Nazism would spread throughout Europe and so he set began to select the best musicians from European countries. He held auditions and selected the best. The Warsaw Symphony was forty percent Jewish and Huberman knew most of them so he decided to hold blind auditions.

As it would turn out, Huberman's predictions proved correct and Nazism spread throughout Europe. Those who were recruited and emigrated to Palestine were saved. Those who were not, disappeared into the Holocaust never to be seen again. Huberman was responsible for saving the lives of almost one thousand Jews. Interestingly the documentary reveals two musicians who left Palestine after being recruited and who returned to Europe only to die in concentration camps.

Orchestra of Exiles dramatizes Bronislaw Huberman's life through realistic re-enactments. Aronson also portrays, through interviews with the descendants of some of the orchestra's founding musicians, the difficulties Huberman encountered as he worked to select musicians, obtain visas for them, permits to enter Palestine and transportation to their new home. For many it was to be a life or death situation. The documentary also explores the situation in Palestine in the mid 1930's, as strife between the Arab and Jewish nations escalated. There are many interviews with renowned Jewish musicians including Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman and Zubin Mehta. There is also an interesting story involved Huberman's violin and Joshua Bell.

Orchestra of Exiles came out of the suggestion by a friend of Aronson's, Dorit Grunschlag Straus, whose father, David Grunschlag was chosen by Bronislaw Huberman to travel to Palestine as part of the new orchestra. Grunschlag emigrated along with his parents and two sisters, thus saving them from the horrors of the Holocaust. This documentary is well worth watching and tells a remarkable story about an incredible musician who put his career on hold to fight for what he believed in and to save an important part of his culture.

Image credit: https://www.gramilano.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Bronislaw-Huberman-2.jpg