Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Berlin, 1944. Edith Falkenstein weeps with joy when the crowds of brave women protesting on Rosenstrasse manage to save their Jewish relatives, including her husband Julius, from deportation to the camps.
Julius once believed abiding by the rules would shield him and his wife. But now he knows better: there is no such thing as mercy from the Nazis, and they must do all they can to save others. Their apartment, long stripped of its luxurious furnishings, might offer little protection from the frigid winter air, but it has become a place of secret shelter—though it puts all their lives at risk.
As bombs rain a thunder of devastation on the city and Soviet soldiers close in from the east, the Nazis have only become more desperate, and more deadly. For the inhabitants, their only option is to flee. But when another raid leaves Julius critically injured, Edith realises he is far too frail to make the perilous journey. She closes her eyes and prays for a miracle.
The final days of the war are here, but there is no cause for celebration in Berlin, where death lingers on every corner. Their love has been the source of their strength and survival all these long years, but will either of them live to see the end?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Berlin Wife’s Vow to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Berlin Wife’s Vow is the fourth and final instalment in Marion Kummerow’s German Wives series. It picks up more or less where the previous book left off in 1943 and instead of the situation for all the characters getting better things seem to be deteriorating at a rapid pace. The matriarchs of the two families featured, Edith and Helga, take more of a back seat in this book and it was only around a quarter or so into the book that I realised this. The younger generation are stepping forward and sharing their stories and this made sense when I read the author’s end notes. Once, I realised that the aforementioned characters wouldn’t have as dominant a role to play I stopped searching for them to feature heavily in chapters and settled into the story. Yes, the two women do feature but to a much lesser extent than they previously had.
David and his sister Amelie live with their parents Helga and Heinrich in a shared apartment with the Falkensteins, Edith and Julius. The siblings are of Jewish descent but only half Jews as their mother is not Jewish, still that does not make them free from the threat of capture or the laws that are imposed upon Jews. Julius is not a practicing Jew and had denounced his religion but again being of Jewish descent means he is a target. Julius has gone from being a powerful businessman who owned a bank and had great wealth to a shadow of his former self. He is weak and frail from his previous incarceration which is not helped by a further injury which hinders him throughout the story. His sense of strength and hope has left him and with every turn of the page I expected him to just give up. His wife Edith is steadfast and loyal and has been with him through thick and thin yet I could sense there was an apprehension about her that time was running out for them and with the situation in Berlin worsening with bombs raining down and the threat of capture from the Gestapo that she too questioned whether they could all make it safely out through the other side.
As previously mentioned, the younger generation come to the fore here, one of them being David. He wants to go underground and live illegally. He plays a very dangerous game throughout and goes outside with his jacket wearing his jacket bearing the star of David inside out so he will avoid detection. It was fascinating to read of the resistance work that he became involved in. I thought he was so dogged and determined and was stepping up to do his bit at just the right time. He was the leader of the younger generation as the older generation had passed the baton on. Not that they probably wanted to but just that they physically, and to a great extent mentally, were not able to continue on.
Roxi is from a Romani background and has seen her family and community members decimated in a similar way to the Jewish population. She is without doubt the standout character of the book. I adored her as a character and wanted her to feature even more than she did. She was brave, intuitive, fearless and resourceful and was like a cat with nine lives. You could feel the love and devotion that herself and David had for each other and that if circumstances were different they wouldn’t have to hide their relationship and could be out and about in public relaxed and at ease. I admired Roxi from beginning to end and I loved that she put herself in the firing line when push came to shove and she had to do something that could potentially have resulted in her own imprisonment if discovered.
Amelie, David’s sister, does feature and play her part in resistance activities whilst at the same time making sure her family are safe which is not easy considering as the story moves forward into 1944 and 1945 the situation throughout Berlin is precarious and death, starvation, danger and the threat of capture by the Gestapo lurk around every corner. Amelie in my mind was under utilised and I would have liked to read more about her. She seemed to pop in and out at various intervals and I would have liked to get to know her in more depth. But perhaps the worst character of all was Thea. She is a former school friend of Ameile’s and was once David’s girlfriend and as the author herself says in her end notes she is complex and conflicted. I definitely would use those two words to describe her but selfish and self-centred would be another two. She is Jewish and has been living underground since her parents were taken away. She has no idea where her husband Ralf is not that she cared for him in the slightest. Thea had lived a good life and wanted for nothing and now she has fallen very far from grace and is about to go even further with her actions that are revealed over the course of the book.
Thea doesn’t want to be captured and sent away to a camp to god knows what fate. So when the Gestapo do locate her and take her in she fears the worst will befall her. But she is clever and will play any game to make sure her parents aren’t sent away when she discovers they are in a holding camp and she wants to secure her own fate. She went to a very dark side and in one small way I could see she was thinking of her parents but in another she only ever thought of herself and her long term future. She gets involved in something that earns her a name feared throughout the streets of Berlin. She has made a deal which I thought the results of would never ever come to fruition. She was gullible and given the entire reason for the war in the first place and Thea being Jewish well the deal was never going to come off. Instead, she caused heartache and despair for so many and at times I really didn’t want to read of her viewpoint because she caused so many conflicting emotions within me.
For me, The German Wife’s Vow wasn’t the best book in the series but I wouldn’t have missed out on it because I had become fully invested in all the characters in particular Edith and Julius. The ending did feel a little rushed but I suppose it did reflect the reality of the last days of war as the Soviets approached the city and those that were left had no choice but to take action. I did think why hadn’t they done this earlier as the option had been available to them but then there wouldn’t have been any books to read. The series as a whole has been very good and I have enjoyed it immensely as it was very interesting to read of families perspectives of the war coming from marriages that meant the children weren’t fully Jewish. I did enjoy that it was always set in Berlin as it’s not often I read about how the Germans themselves survived in a city ruled by the Gestapo and bombs raining down upon them from the British. It’s always good to get two sides to a story. The author mentions she has a spin off series forming in her head. Clues for which were dropped in this book. Well, I didn’t pick up on them so I suppose that’s a good thing as I will be completely surprised by the new series and who will feature. Although being truthfully honest I’d love an entire series devoted to Roxi. I could read about her forever.
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