Reviewed by Emma Crowley
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he whispered, pressing a note into her hand. Her entire body trembled when she read it: I am in love with you.
Helena steps off the cattle train onto the frozen grounds of Auschwitz. She has twenty-four hours to live. Scheduled to be killed tomorrow, she is not even tattooed with a prison number. As the snow falls around her, she shivers, knowing that she has been sentenced to death for a crime she didn’t commit.
When a gray-clad officer marches towards Helena and pulls her away, she fears the worst. Instead, he tells her that it’s one of the guard’s birthdays and orders her to serenade him.
Inside the SS barracks the air is warm, thick with cigarette smoke and boisterous conversation. After she sings to the guard, Franz, he presses a piece of cake into her hands––the first thing she has eaten in days. On the spot, he orders her life to be saved, forever changing the course of her fate.
What follows is a love story that was forbidden, that should have been impossible, and yet saved both of their lives––and hundreds of others––in more ways than one.
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Girl in the Striped Dress to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Ellie Midwood is fast becoming one of my favourite authors of historical fiction and as soon as a new book by this author appears on my radar I just know I have to read it. The Girl in the Striped Dress is the third book I have read by this author and to say I devoured it in more or less one sitting would be an understatement. It’s impossible to leave her books out of your hand once you begin reading. Yes, the subject matter is very difficult to read about but you certainly gain an even deeper appreciation for what the prisoners of Auschwitz went through. You think you have read it all but then along comes another story that just completely blows your mind. This story definitely provides a lot of food for thought and even now having long finished the book I am still contemplating the implications of what I have read.
I am torn as to my actual stance relating to the two main characters Helena and Franz. The human empathetic side of me felt the love between them. But then looking at the overall concept of - can a Nazi really fall in love with a prisoner and want to do their best to protect them at all costs? Was the love Franz and Helena felt genuine or was it a love of circumstance and survival? After all, no doubt it was forbidden, and it should have been impossible, but somehow a seed was planted that grew in the darkest of times. Did it flourish successfully, or did it struggle on to some form of control and obsessiveness due to the situation Helena found herself in? I still find it impossible to decide and I think this up for each individual reader to think about and decide upon when they have finished this remarkable book.
It’s 1947 and the memories of the war are still very much evident in the hearts, minds and physical appearance of all those who lived through it and survived. Dr.Hoffman, an American psychiatrist, is looking through the denazification tribunal folder of Franz Dahler who had been an SS guard at Auschwitz. Dr. Hoffman is an expert observer of the human character and he knows when people are lying. Franz is using his wife Helena to testify for him but what makes this unusual is that Helena was a prisoner in Auschwitz and that she is where she met Franz. Helena in court appears as if in a trance. Yes she can speak and answer questions and she relates her story of her time in the camp when asked but she is very dependant on Franz.
The question instantly arises how can a prisoner fall in love with their captor who is from a group of people who inflicted so much barbarity, sadistic cruelty and human suffering on so many people simply because of their race or religion? The court must decide if the charges against Franz stand and what punishment he should meet if so. But fellow prisoner and now Nazi hunter Andrej is determined that Franz will pay for what he did to Helena and so many others. He is intent on serving the hell back that he and so many others endured back on these who inflicted it. Andrej burns with fury and hatred and can’t comprehend how Helena has married a man who deserves to pay for his crimes. What spell did Franz cast on her?
The story moves back and forth between the courtroom scenes and Helena’s time at the camp. The two strands interweave seamlessly and when it switches back to the courtroom it’s almost like a breath of fresh air so to speak as you need time to process what you have read especially as there are innumerable disturbing scenes. The insights from Dr. Hoffman regarding the human psyche and why Helena may be the way she is are incredible and add so much to the story. They allow you to see each characters side to the story and you try and form your own judgements as to the situation unfolding before your eyes post war. There are brief allusions to a certain syndrome although nothing is specifically mentioned until the end notes and once again it is very much an eye opener. But still I felt as if you were left on not a cliff hanger a such but there was nothing concrete declaring one thing to be certain over another. The reader has to make up their own mind and to do so as soon as I finished this book I found myself looking up these characters and reading more about their fascinating and intriguing experiences.
Helena arrives at the camp in March of 1942, herself and her fellow Slovakians are destined for the gas chamber but singing a song saves her from that fate but that’s not to say her life is safe and secure. Thanks to Franz taking a liking to her and her singing she has been spared the worst fate and given a job working in the Kanada. A detailed explanation of this area allowed me to understand the work Helena did sorting clothes for disinfection and locating jewellery and money from the belongings of the Jews brought to the camp. It was a position of privilege within the camp and although it sounds ridiculous to say those that worked there seemed to fair better than some of the other prisoners. The only escape from Auschwitz was by death or madness but Helena had a saviour in the form of Franz who declares his love for her. You instantly think has she gone completely mad? Does she feel she owes him such a debt of gratitude for saving her from death? Did she persuade herself that she loved him because of his actions? At what point does her resistance falter and Franz ceases to be the enemy?
To be honest I couldn’t believe the way the story unfolded, that she placed such trust and love in this man. Yes, the author writes the character of Franz in such a way that you do feel the love between the pair but all the time you are thinking sure at any point he could just snap and that would be it for Helena. It was like she was cast under a spell from which she couldn’t awaken and you just wanted to warn her to watch out for she was playing a very deadly came and with one wrong turn it could all come crashing down. I thought she had gone into survival mode and was using Franz as a protection mechanism to make it through the darkest days of her life at all costs but then to see they had married post war makes you reassess your opinion and this happened many times over.
The Girl in the Striped Dress out of the three books I have read by Ellie Midwood is perhaps the most divisive. I still am not sure how I feel about either Franz or Helena and this is what makes this such a remarkable novel apart from the sheer brilliance of the writing and descriptions from this astounding author. Usually when you finish a book your mind is made up about what happened and whose side you are on so to speak but here I found this not to be the case. That’s what would make this such a good book club selection as you really need to discuss and explore this deeper with other readers. Books of this nature featuring Auschwitz and all its horrors are not meant to be enjoyable that is the wrong word to use but instead I will say this was engrossing, opinion dividing, and another stunning read from a very talented author. I’ve said before no detail is ever spared when she writes and that only adds to the intensity of what you are reading. There was a particular scene towards the end of the book where Franz is recollecting an event towards the end of the camps existence and to be honest it was just stomach churning and I had to read those pages very slowly in fear of what was coming next. But all this has to be present in novels of this sort and I am glad Ellie Midwood does this. It teaches us never to forget. I would definitely recommend The Girl in the Striped Dress, it’s certainly an eye opener. Thankfully given how much I am loving this authors writing it’s only a month to go until her next book is published and I will be eager to get my hands on it.
I agree with really enjoying the additional insight from the psychiatrist’s analysis of their relationship. I wish there were more to explain how/why Franz fell in love with Helena initially. It was implied as just coincidental and almost fickle after she sang for him. He seemed to dramatically fall in love and I was very curious to know his thought process in those early stages.
ReplyDelete