Review: The Nazi Officer's Wife

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Title: The Nazi Officer's Wife
Authour: Edith Hahn Beer w/Susan Dworkin
Publisher: William Morrow & Compny Inc.
ISBN: 0-688-16689-X
Stars: 4 (out of 5)
Picked this book up at a garage sale as it falls under my collection of WWII memoirs and also because I had never heard of this title before.
This is a memoir of a Jewish woman and what she had to do to survive in Germany during the war. Though the title is a little misleading it is quite a remarkable story of survival.
The chapters cover how the German Army made it's way into Austria and what happened to the countries Jews. From moving into Ghettos and then being forced to work in Germany etc.
The authour mentions the "help" she received from some authorities in how to disappear. After getting all the paperwork that was required and moving to Germany etc. All the while she keeps in touch with her family and friends and discovers that her mother has been deported. The authour mentions a few trips back to Austria and how family and friends are not able to put her up for a few days due to food and room shortages.
She meets up with a German tech. in an Aircraft plant and marries him. When her husband is called up for service that is when he becomes and officer though it is towards the end of the book. He keeps her secret.
The last chapters cover what happens when her husband comes back from Soviet POW camps and the ultimate divorce etc. Her work as a judge and then the ultimate immigration out of Germany. She manages to deliver a baby in the Third Reich and is believed to be the only baby born to a Jew in a German Hospital in 1944.
A very interesting memoir w/a few pictures of key characters that she mentions in the book.

[Diane]

Interesting book . . .

There are many such storied of survival, some are quite amazing.

When I worked on wall street in the late 1980's my boss (an Orthodox Jew) claimed to have been born in Auschwitz!

At the time it seemed incredible but he later brought his birth certificate, issued by the German Authorities in Auschwitz / Monowitz in November 1944 to show me.

His mom had some health issues and was left behind in the camp hospital when the Germans left in early 1945 . . . to be "liberated" by the Soviet Army.

Contrary to popular belief the Soviets were savages - and did not care for the immediate needs of all the remaining inmates as well as their official propaganda portrayed.

Within days of "Liberation" the Soviets and Polish UB began filling the camp with Polish Nationalists, German civilians, foreign workers and Wehrmacht POW's.

There was gunfire nearly 24 hours a day and (she claimed) more executions going on then when the Germans ran the camp. She also commented that the food was a lot better when the German Camp Administration was still in charge which really surprised me.

His mom did have some interesting anecdotes to share about her capture and imprisonement. She said that many Jewish women in her block had been trying to pass as "Aryan" by dying their hair blond - all of it. Some were caught in sweeps (papers please!), others were given away by locals.

As soon as his mom was well enough to travel she headed west and ended up in a DP camp in Austria - later immigrating to the US. She ended up in Brooklyn, NY and was eventually reunited with his father who had been serving in a Hungarian Army labor Battalion and was captured by the Red Army and forced into service until the summer of 1945.

We became quite good friends and his family invited me to visit their lush palatial estate on the West Bank - a trip I was never able to make due to Operation Desert Storm / Shield 199-91.