Bookworm Blurbs

I had to read this book for a class that I'm taking right now on Nazism, Hitler, and the Holocaust. It was such an interesting book! Each of the women had a different perspective and vastly different experiences. Some of the women still retain the bigoted opinions that they had during the Third Reich, others were horrified by how naive they were, while other women saw through Hitler and the Nazis right from the start. While reading it, at times I was blown away by exactly how bad it got - the Holocaust was so horrific that it's difficult to believe that something like that actually happened, that humans could really go through with something that bad. Reading this makes everything crystal clear and makes the reader realize, once again, that the Holocaust is something that truly should never be repeated. Each chapter is written in the style of an interview, so it's easier to read than most of my other textbooks for the class have been - because this really is not a textbook, but a collection of interviews. Even so, it can be a little hard to follow due to translation and also because some of the women tend to ramble, without any real train of thought. This was especially common for the women who were more working class; the educated women tended to put their thoughts into words much more clearly and eloquently, which, of course, is to be expected. It's also difficult to read because some of the women really are quite graphic when they describe the different things that they saw and experienced, but again, that's to be expected and I don't think that this is a subject that can really be over dramatized because it truly was terrible. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history or Germany, or women in general. I liked how unique it is: not many books focus entirely on the perspective of ordinary women. I think that books like this should become more common, because these women's stories were more "real" than any that I've ever read when it comes to this subject. They weren't particularly exceptional: this was what truly happened, what every woman might have experienced in one way or another. Definitely a worthwhile read.