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The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust Paperback – Wall Map, October 24, 2000
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Born to a middle-class, nonobservant Jewish family, Beer was a popular teenager and successful law student when the Nazis moved into Austria. In a well-written narrative that reads like a novel, she relates the escalating fear and humiliating indignities she and others endured, as well as the anti-Semitism of friends and neighbors. Using all their resources, her family bribed officials for exit visas for her two sisters, but Edith and her mother remained, due to lack of money and Edith's desire to be near her half-Jewish boyfriend, Pepi. Eventually, Edith was deported to work in a labor camp in Germany. Anxious about her mother, she obtained permission to return to Vienna, only to learn that her mother was gone. In despair, Edith tore off her yellow star and went underground. Pepi, himself a fugitive, distanced himself from her. A Christian friend gave Edith her own identity papers, and Edith fled to Munich, where she met andAdespite her confession to him that she was JewishAmarried Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member. Submerging her Jewish identity at home and at work, Edith lived in constant fear, even refusing anesthetic in labor to avoid inadvertently revealing the truth about her past. She successfully maintained the facade of a loyal German hausfrau until the war ended. Her story is important both as a personal testament and as an inspiring example of perseverance in the face of terrible adversity. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A well-written, tense, and intimate Holocaust memoir by an author with a remarkable war experience. Young Beer (ne Hahn) was a promising Viennese Jewish law student until the German Anschluss annexing Austria made her circle stop its laughing (``Hitler is a joke. He will soon disappear''). She was a Christmas-tree Jew with a Gentile boyfriend (dreaming of a socialist paradise), but Zionist siblings (who escape to Palestine), and the deadly follow-ups to the Nuremberg Laws send Beer into an underground existence as a ``U-boat'' in Aryan Germany. Beer took on an Austrian friend's documents and identity, got employed with the Munich Red Cross, and dated soldiers for the meals and covermarrying one Nazi, Werner Vetter, with a good job and expertise in art. She admitted her Jewishness to him but lived outwardly as a normal Hausfrau. Beer talked her husband into pregnancy, even though under Nazi rule their baby would be considered Jewish. The baby was a girl, making Werner furious``a Nazi who made a religion of twisted, primitive virility,'' Hahn comments. The losing Reich drafted the one-eyed Werner, made him an officer, and shipped him to Russia. The Nazi officer's wife discovered the Holocaust from forbidden BBC broadcasts and so learned the fate of family and friends. After the Russians conquered and burned her neighborhood, Beer retrieved her old identity papers and diploma, and this illegal fugitive was eventually transformed into a feared judge. Some embittered Jewish survivors cursed her for the way she survived the war, but Beer was still fearful enough to baptize her daughter. A returned Werner rejected the independent Edith who had replaced his servile Grete, so Beer divorced him in 1947, left the oppressive Russians, and emigrated to England, then, in 1987, to Israel. This engaging book goes deeper than psychologizing on the (Patty) Hearst Syndrome in explaining how the survival instinct allows one to sleep with the enemy. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
214 of 221 people found the following review helpful
By
Vikram Srinivasan
on May 10, 2000
Format: Hardcover
1 Comment
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I'm an 18-year old college student in India.My father had been to London recently where he ran into Ms.Angela at Harrods.Although,it was a chance meeting for him,it was a god-sent gift for me.She encouraged him to read a copy of "The Nazi Officer's Wife" written by her mother,Edith Hahn Beer.Although I must admit that war novels never interested me before,I was proven wrong by this one.
Once I started reading the book,I just couldnt put it down.Here is a simple,straightforward account of a Jewsih woman whose faith in her religion and her strength never let her down inspite of the horrendous perils that she had to face every minute of her life during the World War period.When I try to understand the pain in her heart when she was refused her University Degree,when she had to leave her Mother for the Asparagus fields,when she had nobody to turn to after her relationship with her boyfriend was heading no where,when she had to put on an endless charade amidst the core of the Nazi society,when she had to rely on God's mercy to keep her Jewish identity a secret,when she had to work as a maid in London after being an honoured Judge in Germany.....what can i say,its just unimaginable that this woman managed to survive through all this on her own.
There are so many lessons that this book has taught me.I can never stop admiring Edith Hahn Beer for her unshakeable faith that tomorrow is a better day.One of the most beautiful things I found in this book was the French saying "Life is beautiful and it begins tomorrow".It is so true that very few of us bother to realise its meaning!
And of course,how can I forget to mention how moved I was by this woman's love for her Mother.Read more ›
Once I started reading the book,I just couldnt put it down.Here is a simple,straightforward account of a Jewsih woman whose faith in her religion and her strength never let her down inspite of the horrendous perils that she had to face every minute of her life during the World War period.When I try to understand the pain in her heart when she was refused her University Degree,when she had to leave her Mother for the Asparagus fields,when she had nobody to turn to after her relationship with her boyfriend was heading no where,when she had to put on an endless charade amidst the core of the Nazi society,when she had to rely on God's mercy to keep her Jewish identity a secret,when she had to work as a maid in London after being an honoured Judge in Germany.....what can i say,its just unimaginable that this woman managed to survive through all this on her own.
There are so many lessons that this book has taught me.I can never stop admiring Edith Hahn Beer for her unshakeable faith that tomorrow is a better day.One of the most beautiful things I found in this book was the French saying "Life is beautiful and it begins tomorrow".It is so true that very few of us bother to realise its meaning!
And of course,how can I forget to mention how moved I was by this woman's love for her Mother.Read more ›
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76 of 81 people found the following review helpful
By
Jana L. Perskie
HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on July 5, 2003
Format: Paperback
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Edith Hahn Beer is a Jewess, now living in Netanya Israel. In 1938, pro-Nazi Vienna, she was an intelligent, inquisitive law student, with an adventurous spirit. After Anschluss, the German's pressed the Austrian Jews for all their money and valuables in return for exit visas. Some families had to decide, because of a lack of funds, which of their children could leave for safer havens, and which were doomed to stay in Austria with their parents, and almost certain deportation. Edith's two sisters left the country, but she remained with her childhood friend and lover, Pepi, with the hope they would soon marry.
She was sent to a labor camp in the north of Germany to do backbreaking farm work, 12 hours a day, six days a week. The motto of some of the Jewish laborers was, "Life is beautiful, and it begins tomorrow." Her mother was deported to the East while Edith was in Germany, helpless to assist or join her beloved parent. When she finally returned to Vienna, her home and family were gone. Her remaining friends, Jew and Gentile, with few exceptions, were afraid to assist her. Her beloved Pepi, whose Jewish father had married a non-Jew, was a weak man, dominated by his mother. And the mother wanted nothing to do with Edith. A prewar friend, who also happened to be a doctor, and a Nazi Party bureaucrat, assisted Edith, and another gentile friend obtained copies of her own identity papers for her. Edith writes, "Our faces will be imprinted on the hearts of those who are kind to us, like a blessing."
So, she moved to Munich, in 1942, submerging her identity in the wartime Reich. Edith Hahn disappeared from the face of the earth and Grete Denner emerged to replace everything Edith had ever been.Read more ›
She was sent to a labor camp in the north of Germany to do backbreaking farm work, 12 hours a day, six days a week. The motto of some of the Jewish laborers was, "Life is beautiful, and it begins tomorrow." Her mother was deported to the East while Edith was in Germany, helpless to assist or join her beloved parent. When she finally returned to Vienna, her home and family were gone. Her remaining friends, Jew and Gentile, with few exceptions, were afraid to assist her. Her beloved Pepi, whose Jewish father had married a non-Jew, was a weak man, dominated by his mother. And the mother wanted nothing to do with Edith. A prewar friend, who also happened to be a doctor, and a Nazi Party bureaucrat, assisted Edith, and another gentile friend obtained copies of her own identity papers for her. Edith writes, "Our faces will be imprinted on the hearts of those who are kind to us, like a blessing."
So, she moved to Munich, in 1942, submerging her identity in the wartime Reich. Edith Hahn disappeared from the face of the earth and Grete Denner emerged to replace everything Edith had ever been.Read more ›
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116 of 128 people found the following review helpful
By
E. Bukowsky
HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on March 31, 2002
Format: Paperback
6 Comments
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In "The Nazi Officer's Wife," Edith Hahn describes how she grew up with her parents and sisters in Vienna in the 1920's. Vienna in those days was a magical, picturesque and sophisticated place. This lovely city was filled with sunny cafés, cultural activities and daring intellectuals. Although the undercurrents of anti-Semitism were present in Vienna even then, Jews and gentiles coexisted side by side in peace.
In 1938, Edith's world was turned upside down. The German army marched into Austria; the Austrians voted for "Anschluss" or union with Germany. After the Nazis took over, everything changed for Edith and her family. German thugs ruled the streets and laws were passed which tightened the noose around Jewish necks day by day. Some members of Edith's family escaped Austria before conditions deteriorated any further. Edith remained in Austria and was sent to do forced labor at a farm and later at a work camp.
How did Edith ultimately avoid deportation? With the help of some friends, she obtained forged papers declaring her to be an Aryan of pure blood. At the age of twenty-eight, she married a Nazi party member named Werner Vetter and spent the war years in Brandenburg, Germany, as a dutiful "Aryan" wife and mother.
How could any woman live such a lie? Although Edith at times hated herself for her deception, she felt that her actions were justifiable under the circumstances. Is Edith Hahn's story an honest and courageous tale of survival against all odds, or is it the memoir of a cowardly woman who sold out in order to save herself? Each reader must answer this difficult question for himself.
In 1938, Edith's world was turned upside down. The German army marched into Austria; the Austrians voted for "Anschluss" or union with Germany. After the Nazis took over, everything changed for Edith and her family. German thugs ruled the streets and laws were passed which tightened the noose around Jewish necks day by day. Some members of Edith's family escaped Austria before conditions deteriorated any further. Edith remained in Austria and was sent to do forced labor at a farm and later at a work camp.
How did Edith ultimately avoid deportation? With the help of some friends, she obtained forged papers declaring her to be an Aryan of pure blood. At the age of twenty-eight, she married a Nazi party member named Werner Vetter and spent the war years in Brandenburg, Germany, as a dutiful "Aryan" wife and mother.
How could any woman live such a lie? Although Edith at times hated herself for her deception, she felt that her actions were justifiable under the circumstances. Is Edith Hahn's story an honest and courageous tale of survival against all odds, or is it the memoir of a cowardly woman who sold out in order to save herself? Each reader must answer this difficult question for himself.
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