MY THOUGHTS AND BOOK REVIEW
Michael Witt in his novel narrates I AM GERMANY to conjure his readers to deeply explore the historical events before World War 2 had started. An elderly man, half-Jew, and a widower, Heinrich Schultheiss returns to Germany after fifty years of living in America in 1936 with his parents. He had left Nazi Germany for Iowa shortly before the war at the age of sixteen. He comes back to the day the berlin wall fell and allowed him to travel freely between two Germany, West, and East Berlin without a special visa. As traveling in unified Germany he recollects that his childhood memories which are personal and a good part of his boyhood had been wiped off when Allied bombs pounded the monster out of Berlin in 1944 and 1945. There it was - except the Brandenburg Gate with the Greek Goddess of military victory - Victoria Gate. Every building, old store, and the house of chocolate vanished into thin air. He was horrified to see his childhood home Edelberg gone too.
This novel stirs up the aftermaths of the night of the allied bombing in April 1945. On his return, Heinrich is looking for his first love, Anna Himmel- To him, she was a human goddess, Anna had been more than a child prodigy violinist and the daughter of the owner of Germany's most famous violinist company. She made a concert debut at age twelve. He had been crazily in love with her. He thought she was German high in art and culture. Anna upon meeting Heinrich tells her scary personal story that happened during the dark political time in 1945 that built the wall. Edelberg was bombed out of Europe and her brother Brenhard is dead - killed soldering in Stalingrad. Her brother despised Hitler's regime and had become a Nazi warrior, he was also Heinrich's best friend because he had something Ethereal and Magnetic. Heinrich and Anna were alarmed when they came to expose the number of European people who died and the children who were murdered between 1945 and 1989.
This novel is filled with disturbing events in history and the tale of innocent victims. This is a great piece of story and written plot for those who love to get caught in the moments before World War 2. Thanks to NetGalley and Koehler Books Publisher for an advance copy for my honest review.
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- Publisher : Koehler Books
- Publication Date: (September 27, 2022)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 218 pages
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Three years before the Holocaust came to the first holocaust, the one that nobody hears about. It stole the lives of thousands of children.
In 1930s Germany, before the war, Anna Himmel was Henry Schultz's secret first love and a child-prodigy violinist lauded as the embodiment of German high art and culture. But when the issue of reunification draws a grieving, widowed Henry back to Germany in 1989, decades after his family fled the growing Nazi threat, she is a shell of who she once was. As Anna reluctantly shares her story of trying to save a disabled little girl at Hartheim Castle, a covert Nazi euthanasia site, Henry starts to realize the insidiousness of the evils he left behind-and the consequences of trying to forget.
But she cannot bear to give voice to the end of the story. To answer once and for all the question of how normal people slip piecemeal into evil and whether Anna can ever reunify with who she once was, Henry sets out to Hartheim to find the ending himself. What he discovers there will change them both forever.
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