The German House
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4.1 • 80 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The novel behind the Disney-produced Hulu Original Series The Interpreter of Silence
As seen in the New York Times Book Review.
A December 2019 Indie Next Pick!
Set against the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963, Annette Hess’s international bestseller is a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story about a young female translator—caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power—as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation’s past.
If everything your family told you was a lie, how far would you go to uncover the truth?
For twenty-four-year-old Eva Bruhns, World War II is a foggy childhood memory. At the war’s end, Frankfurt was a smoldering ruin, severely damaged by the Allied bombings. But that was two decades ago. Now it is 1963, and the city’s streets, once cratered are smooth and paved. Shiny new stores replace scorched rubble. Eager for her wealthy suitor, Jürgen Schoormann, to propose, Eva dreams of starting a new life away from her parents and sister. But Eva’s plans are turned upside down when a fiery investigator, David Miller, hires her as a translator for a war crimes trial.
As she becomes more deeply involved in the Frankfurt Trials, Eva begins to question her family’s silence on the war and her future. Why do her parents refuse to talk about what happened? What are they hiding? Does she really love Jürgen and will she be happy as a housewife? Though it means going against the wishes of her family and her lover, Eva, propelled by her own conscience , joins a team of fiery prosecutors determined to bring the Nazis to justice—a decision that will help change the present and the past of her nation.
Translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hess's strong debut follows Eva Bruhns, who works as an interpreter at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials in 1963 Germany, in which German defendants have been charged with crimes they perpetrated at Auschwitz during WWII. Eva becomes emotionally invested as she interprets the testimonies of Polish witnesses from Polish to German, but she doesn't understand why her parents, Edith and Ludwig, owners of the German House restaurant, don't seem to care about the trial. As Eva continues her work and makes a trip to Auschwitz along with other members of the trial team, she uncovers secrets her parents have hidden from her about her father's work during the war. The period detail is impressive, but the highlight is Eva, a complex and thoughtful woman who finds herself in the midst of a significant moment in history. This novel will appeal to both WWII fiction fans and those seeking historical novels anchored by a strong, memorable heroine.
Customer Reviews
Highly recommended
Insightful, penetrating study of the generation of post-War young Germans coming to grips with their parents’ complicity in the Holocaust. The story centers on the two daughters of a middle-class Frankfurt family, one a nurse troubled by a dimly remembered past and the other (Eva) an interpreter blithely preparing for an engagement to an upright heir.
Eva takes a (she thinks) temporary position translating for witnesses at a trial of former SS officers stationed at Auschwitz. Ignorant of the Holocaust, Eva translates the witness accounts with growing horror; as her disgust with the officers mounts, she discovers that her own parents may be implicated.
Honest and unsparing, The German House is especially effective at conveying the everyday lives of two generations—one that wants forget and another that insists on remembering while nonetheless trying to prepare for its own future. Highly recommended.
Mej
This book was a lot. It was only 325 pages, but it felt like so much more! I initially thought it would be a quick, read in one sitting read, and then I realized yes, that’s how it should be read. Because if you don’t read this in one sitting, or end at one of the parts, you’ll have no idea what’s going on or where you ended.
Wins:
-it’s a side of WW2 that I have never heard talked about, I liked the fact that it was 20 years later and during the trials
-character progression: just with Eva. Throughout the trial she begins to find things out and is changed as a person
-the foreshadowing into the blindside shock. The twists were pretty good. Didn’t expect some of them
Opportunities:
-BREAK IT UP. There were literally paragraphs that went on for 3 pages, single paragraphs, where the dialogue wasn’t broken up into different sections, the paragraphs went on forever, over explained and took what felt like hours to get through
-no chapters. This goes with the above. It felt like if I needed to take my dog out, or get a drink, there were no stopping points for 50 pages, and then coming back it would take me 5 minutes to figure out where I left off
-the random switching povs with no break, spaces, paragraph changes, just BOOM, we’re following someone else.
-the romance was awful. I hate Jürgen. I think he’s an awful character, and their entire relationship was one muddy mess that I had no idea what was going on. It was super confusing, and he was a VERY unlikeable character.
-the pointless additions. We kept flashing back to completely irrelevant other sides to the story that just felt like glue trying to form some kind of plot, which leads me to:
-what was the plot?
I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought i would. I claimed it with points on Bookish First because I was that excited, and I’m super disappointed. It was honestly an exhausting read, and not due to World War 2 content, because I felt like if I took any breaks in this book after putting it down the first time, I wasn’t going to pick it back up. All the characters were kind of annoying, there really wasn’t a plot, and there was a lot of garbage trying to make it a full length novel. The trials were actually really interesting to read about, but those were almost skimmed over. I probably will not be picking this up in the near future.
Poorly Written or Translated
Not at all good for such a heavy topic.