I tend to take a long time to psych myself up to either read bestsellers or watch blockbuster movies set during the Holocaust, so I am coming late to this book even though it has been sitting in my reading pile since before its official publication (thank you to Edelweiss for the ARC). There are now hundreds of reviews out there, so I have nothing new to add except to express my own unease as to veracity.
 
In a nutshell, this is a romance novel set in a concentration camp that has a happy ending. (See below for an article from Australian ABC about its genesis.) Not a scenario for any faint-hearted author and I have to compliment Heather Morris for taking it on to resounding success and for turning it into a sizzling Hollywood plot. If it had been written as a non-fiction memoir, it would probably have been destined for the remainder pile by now.
 
The author must have been convinced of the truth of the story she was told; how the dashing Lale from Slovakia met the love of his life, Gita, in Auschwitz, and conducted a passionate love affair with her under the noses of the SS: how he had a privileged job and managed to walk around the camp freely, help his sadistic guard negotiate problems with his love life, be involved in organising a soccer team between starving prisoners and fat SS (really?), traded gems and money from the crematoria collection with outside workers for food, gave his girlfriend chocolate, and even after his nefarious activities were discovered, he still managed to survive and continue as before. 
 
When it comes to what really went on in concentration camps only those who were there can ever know the truth of it. Few of us can tell what we would do in those circumstances and what humiliating and despicable steps we might take in order to save our own skin. Collaboration is not a word to use lightly but it did happen and those of us who had parents and grandparents in such a situation and managed to survive, must face the brutal fact that they may have had to compromise themselves and sacrifice others in order to do so.
 
The romantics and idealists - and perhaps deniers - among us will want to believe that it was possible something good and beautiful could have come out of those camps, the more pragmatic will be concerned about horrific history also being compromised in order to produce a story that makes the rest of us feel ... hey, perhaps it wasn't really that bad, you know ...
 
Three stars for the Hollywood plot. One star for doubt.

ABC News Story here

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Sara Rose’s Russian grandmother Nina has died and left her a cottage in Tasmania. It is the catalyst Sara needs to change her life. Together with daughter Ellie she leaves her marriage and returns to her roots. Once there, she has a chance to contemplate the past and try to find answers to questions she has avoided for far too long. Why was she raised by Nina and not her mother, Helena, and why does she not even know the identity of her own father?
 
As she settles in, Sara becomes friendly with an Afghani refugee, Abdhul, who arrived in Australia by boat and is anxiously waiting to find out if he is eligible for permanent residence and whether his wife and children left behind in Pakistan can join him.
 
Sara’s abandonment by her own mother contrasts with her need to protect Ellie from witnessing the raw realities of life and wants her “to feel that love wrapped around her like the layers of the matryoskha” given to her by Nina and to let the child experience something of the “same magical childhood” that she enjoyed.
 
In her work as a geneticist, Sara becomes involved in a project researching whether trauma is inherited and this adds yet another level to the story. Nina’s traumatic refugee experience of an earlier era reflects off that of Abdhul in the Australia of today and yet Nina in her own way was not immune from prejudices, some of which go to explain Helena’s subsequent actions.
 
There is a great deal here to think about with all these layers:  family secrets, morals and ethics, current politics, feminist issues, and ultimately those genetic components that might shape us and over which we have no control. There is a romantic relationship that doesn’t always find its place within such a strong and compelling storyline, but overall this is a tender and sympathetic read from Katherine Johnson in which the narrative flows well and it is highly recommended.

​(With many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for an advanced reading copy.)

4 stars


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