Holocaust

‘Last Twilight in Paris’ by Pam Jenoff is a stunning glimpse into a little known WWII “camp” in the middle of Paris

/ Pamela Kramer

Fans of Pam Jenoff know that her historical fiction novels don’t just tell a story. Instead, they insert us right into the middle of events most of us had never heard of — real events that are shocking and which deserve to be exposed. The French capitulated to the Germans during WWII, and many didn’t seem particularly opposed to assisting when it came to the impoundment of the Jewish French population. The French police joined in with the Gestapo to help round up the Jews of Paris, and many of the French population were only too happy to take for their own apartments that had belonged to Parisian Jews. Acclaimed author Pam Jenoff shares a little known facet of that war in “Last Twilight in Paris,” a fictional account that takes place partly in Lévitan, the French furniture store that served as both a Jewish detention center and a shopping mecca for Nazi officers during the war.

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‘Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II’ by Adam Gidwitz is both charming and chilling

/ Pamela Kramer

Adam Gidwitz is a much loved children’s author whose fabulous tales have taken readers young and old from Grimm’s fairy tales (“A Tale Dark and Grimm“) to the Inquisition (“The Inquisitor’s Tale“) and now to WWII in “Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II.” This historical fiction also contains Gidwitz’s trademark fantasy twist with two mythical creatures who accompany main character Max as he travels from Berlin to London as part of the Kindertransport, which took Jewish children from Germany to countries where they stayed in foster homes until the end of the war.

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‘The Enemy Beside Me’ by Naomi Ragen is a powerful novel about finding one’s worth

/ Pamela Kramer

Sometimes a book can be difficult to read, perhaps difficult because of the quantity of information presented, perhaps difficult because it makes us uncomfortable, or sad, or because it shines a bright light on ugly human flaws which we’d rather not think about. But that book might need to be read over and over again to really experience it fully, discomfort notwithstanding. Naomi Ragen’s fourteenth novel, “The Enemy Beside Me,” is just such a novel because of the intense spotlight she shines on a country that to this day refuses to admit its part in the massacre of its Jewish population, and because of the amount of information she presents, factual first person accounts, about those horrific events.

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‘The Paris Daughter’ by Kristin Harmel is a story of betrayal, love, and loss

/ Pamela Kramer

Paris is the setting in “The Paris Daughter” by Kristin Harmel, where the threat of German occupation looms over everyone. Two young women meet by chance in a park and become good friends. The fact that they meet while pregnant, and give birth to daughters almost the exact same age, cements the bond that Elise and Juliette feel. There is also the fact that both are Americans who moved to France to be with their French husbands. Both their daughters end up feeling almost like sisters as they often play together.

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‘Woman on Fire’ by Lisa Barr is a thriller about the worlds of art and censorship

/ Pamela Kramer
Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr

In “Woman on Fire,” author Lisa Barr immerses readers into the world of art—now and during the Holocaust—and how the art world, the buying and selling of paintings by famous artists, even today is impacted by what the Nazis did. Barr begins the story with one of the main characters, Jules Roth, in danger during an art exhibit. The story then takes us back 18 months in time and cleverly provides the background for that event. It also shares the fascinating story of lost artwork, Nazi theft and destruction of artwork, hidden identities, psychopathy, drugs, artists, and journalism.

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‘The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation’ by Rosemary Sullivan

/ Pamela Kramer
The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan

It was a cold case all right. A very, very cold case. Rosemary Sullivan’s fascinating and important study, “The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation,” takes us through an excruciatingly detailed account of the 2019 investigation whose goal was to find—once and for all—who was responsible for revealing to the Nazi authorities the location of the Frank family’s hiding place in August of 1944.

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‘The Last Rose of Shanghai’ by Weina Dai Randel is a gripping novel about turbulent life in wartime China

/ Pamela Kramer
The Last Rose of Shanghai
by Weina Dai Randel

“The Last Rose of Shanghai” by Weina Dai Randel paints a vivid portrait of life in Shanghai during WWII, during the Japanese occupation both before and after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It’s an in-depth study of not only the Jewish refugee situation, but also how wealthy Chinese families lived and the rules that they lived by. The story is told from the viewpoints of Aiyi Shao, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Shanghai family; Ernest Reismann, a German refugee who arrived in Shanghai with nothing but a camera and his younger sister; and also from Aiyi Shao’s point of view in 1980 as she is trying to convince a documentarian to research and film a documentary about Ernest’s life during the war.

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‘The Winter Guest’ by Pam Jenoff is historical fiction about Poland, life in a small village during WWII, and sacrifice

/ Pamela Kramer
The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff

Pam Jenoff writes historical fiction, sometimes based on real events, usually about WWII and the Holocaust. Her books provide a glimpse into how people survived in often horrific situations and reflect both the best and the worst instincts of humans. In “The Winter Guest,” Jenoff writes about Poland during the war, centering her story on a family in a small town near Kraków, eighteen-year-old twin sisters caring for their younger three siblings after the death of their father and the hospitalization of their mother for cancer. Much of the story is about their struggle to survive during this time of depredation, but Jenoff also imagines what life was like in small-town Poland.

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‘Bluebird’ by Sharon Cameron is a stunning work of fiction based on real events that are shocking

/ Pamela Kramer
Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

Sharon Cameron demonstrated her ability to write engrossing historical fiction based on real events in her masterful book, “The Light in Hidden Places.” In some ways, “Bluebird,” based on real, shocking events, is the antithesis of that story. As a contrast to the first story that focuses on heroes that appeared in unlikely places during WWII, “Bluebird” unveils true villains who masqueraded as heroes. The main character, Eva, is a veritable hero, but we meet many of the truly evil beings whose bigotry, arrogance, and racial prejudice stoked the fires of hate during that time.

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‘Defending Britta Stein’ by Ronald H. Balson: thrilling courtroom drama and history about how the Danish saved the Jews in WWII

/ Pamela Kramer
Defending Britta Stein by Ronald H. Balson

In “Defending Britta Stein” by Ronald H. Balson, attorney Catherine Lockhart and her husband, private investigator Liam Taggert, are the actors whose actions bring about justice in an unlikely manner. Through these two characters, both well known to Balson fans, we are privy to the history of a family of Danish Jews during WWII. As is standard in Balson’s novels, there is a story-within-a-story, and Lockhart and Taggert are the vehicles through which the Holocaust story is told. The storytelling is gripping, and this courtroom drama showcases the unity and bravery of the Danish people in saving most of their population of Jews during WWII when the Germans decided to implement their final solution on the Jews of Denmark.

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‘Sisters of the Resistance’ WWII fiction by Christine Wells is fascinating and engrossing from the first page

/ Pamela Kramer / 1 Comment
Sisters of the Resistance by Christine Wells

“Sisters of the Resistance” is an apt title for this historical fiction that’s partly based on real events and real people and in which women are the main characters. What is unusual about how Christine Wells, the author, chooses to share the events is that the story is told in two different timelines, which is not so unusual, but they are only three years apart. We meet Yvette, the main character, in 1947, as she returns to Paris after the war to testify in the trial of a movie star accused of collaboration with the Nazis and treason. She has not been to Paris nor communicated with her mother and sister since she was smuggled out of France in the final days of the war. Then the action changes to 1944, in the final days of the war.

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