Those Who Save Us.

One of my favorite things about traveling is learning the history of the places I've visited. I don't think you can truly appreciate the sites you've seen without learning about the people who came before you. You can admire the art work in the Uffizi Gallery or snap a few photos of the stones that comprise Stonehenge, but until you've learned their history you can never really appreciate them.

Two summers ago I took a trip with my family to Europe and spent some time in Germany. While we were there we went on a tour through the city of Nuremburg. You cannot go anywhere in Europe without learning how drastically World War II changed the continent. In some of the towns in Germany you will hear very little spoken about the war, but our tour through Nuremburg was all about Nazi Germany. Even decades later walking through the tribune of the Zeppelinfeld stadium, where Hitler addressed the Nazi party, chills went down my back.

Nuremberg, Germany

Although the city looks ancient, on January 2, 1945 ninety percent of the medieval city center was destroyed by allied bombers.

Update Book 14: Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

This is the second book this year that has been about women during WWII. I have enjoyed both of these historical fiction novels. "Those Who Save Us" is told from the perspective of an Aryan German woman in 1939, and from the perspective of her daughter in 1997. This book was different because it showed all sides of the war. You don't often hear about how difficult things were for German Civilians. What made this book so interesting is that it showed the German side of the story without diminishing the atrocities that were committed against the Jews. This is a book about the terrible things that are done during war, the lives that are changed, and the guilt it causes that never goes away. I found that I could not put this book down. It was very compelling, but also much darker at times than "My Enemy's Cradle."

This quote from the book gives you a good idea of how the author handles the difficult subject matter:

"Most of us are drawn to this time period thinking it was a war of absolute good versus absolute evil---qualities rarely found in their purest form---and that's true. But don't forget that history isn't just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades."

I also want to mention something about how this book was written. There are no quotation marks. None at all. There is plenty of dialogue, but no quotation marks around it. This means that you have to read everything very carefully. Even though at times I found it sort of annoying, if I were ever to write a book this is how I would do it. You can't just skim a page to read the interesting conversations, you have to read every word.