Customer Reviews

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived The Holocaust

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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 answer this difficult question for himself.

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.Her belief that she would be reunited someday with her Mother,her pangs of grief when "she sent me cake when she was hungry,mittens when she was cold"...and her resolution to do the same for her daughter(by trying to provide her the family which she herself never had around her)....these things go a long way in bringing out human emotions in their most tender and vulnerable forms.One cannot help but think inwardly what else one could have done under such terrible circumstances.

No doubt Ms.Beer's decisions were justified in every sense and they were ably supported by her virtues which we should all aspire to inculcate.

Just when I thought I had read and seen everything I'd ever want about the Holocaust (and then some), I found myself fascinated by this book. Quite frankly, reading about somebody's true experience suddenly makes a story like "Life is Beautiful" seem shallow and unnecessary. (Truth being stranger, and more compelling, than even well-intended fiction.) In some ways it's the details of real everyday life -- the food rations, the clandestine radio listening, the casual comments of neighbors -- that make the book come alive. Plus, the clarity of the storytelling (it reads like a novel but maintains the right dose of sobriety and dignity) simply transports you into Edith Hahn's world. It's a must-read for anyone who wants to feel knowledgeable about the Holocaust.

I did not think I could read yet another WWII/Holocaust book and I was put off by the odious notion of a Jewish woman marrying a Nazi officer for cover. Forget all that. Let no one judge until he/she has read this book, a simple tale of day-to-day survival. Beautifully written. A page turner.

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. Grete was not only a new identity, she was a totally different woman; mild, meek, unassuming and uneducated - hard to pick out of a crowd. Thus began life as a "U-boat," submerged beneath the surface of society in Nazi Germany. She writes, "Now I am like Dante. I walk through hell, but I am not burning." Living in mortal fear, she found work as a nurses aide, and a room with a kind family. She met a handsome Aryan, Werner Vetter, who wooed her persistently. When he pressured her to marry, she finally blurted out her secret. Werner accepted her Jewishness, to the extent that he still wanted to marry and protect her. He wanted to sleep with her and have her take care of him. But her husband never rid himself of Nazi prejudices about "Jewish blood," and resisted having a child with Edith/Grete. She, in turn, became the passive, perfect wife Werner desired, abandoning any remaining sense of self. The ironies of her existence increased as the war progressed, and Germany's doom became obvious to almost all. Then Werner, blind in one eye, was drafted and became an officer in the Wehrmacht. Edith/Grete became pregnant - the Ideal Aryan Wife, with a baby on the way and a husband at the front.

This is a powerful account of a person existing in a schizophrenic life, with constant fear of discovery, and almost no sense of identity. The isolation was devastating. One can only imagine Edith's survivor guilt, which most Holocaust survivors suffer from. Here she was living the "normal" life of a German Hausfrau, while millions of others, like her own mother, went to the camps and crematorium. She discusses this guilt frankly in the book. She was and is an extraordinarily brave woman. We are fortunate that, at great risk to her life, she kept a record of her survival and has chosen to share her inspiring story.

This intimate narrative is simply and intelligently written. Her tale is so gripping that it is almost impossible to put down. At times it does seem that truth is stranger than fiction. I highly recommend this autobiographical account of a woman's life in hell. It is a story like no other.

We will only have the surviving victims of the holocaust with us a short time longer. How important it is that as many as possible should write their own personal stories. In the case of this book, Edith Hanh Beer allows us to see her very normal life at first disrupted and then torn apart by the invasion of the Nazi's. We see what motivates her (saving her mother's life, staying near the man she loves) and how both those decisions lead her into difficulties in one case and possibly into saving her own and her child's life in the other. We see the price one pays for concealing an identity so carefully that the concealer doesn't really know who she is anymore. We see how one can live with a mate and play a role for survival, and how those roles can turn around. It is an excellent and quick read, and I wish more of us would read these true stories to keep us from ever being in such a horrible situation ever again.

Though I consumed this book in a matter of hours, I found it so emotionally affecting that I had to stop and take a deep breath now and then, walk around the block, before I could continue reading. All the more compelling for its simple, honest style, this is a tale of extraordinary courage and perseverance on the part of Edith Hahn Beer. Would that more of her Austrian and German neighbors (of the "Aryan" stripe) had had a greater share of the integrity displayed by this woman. Her life irreparably fractured by events that remain utterly vivid and disturbing 50-some years after the fact, she somehow manages an astonishing degree of objectivity in her assessment of the evil forces arrayed against her and every other European Jew in those very dark decades. Definitely not a story for the fainthearted, this disturbing book and others like it need to be read and reread precisely to help prevent their repetition in the future.

I have just finished devouring Edith Hahn Beer's account and was completely entralled and with her story. It is a must read for anyone who in interested in the World War II Era and how we can not allow the world or anyone to let this happen again.

This book is an extremely well told story of a woman who, in order to survive The Holocaust, ends up marrying a man who ends up as a Nazi Officer.

Sorry to be crass, but this book is a real page turner.

Edith is an intelligent, warm & witty soul who had an extraordinary experience & luckily for us, has been brave enough to look back & write it all down.

It has an intimate quality, due largely to the fact that Ms. Hahn Beer has written it for her daughter who, born in a Nazi hospital, in 1944, wanted to know exactly what happened. Can you blame her?

If you are interested in Nazi Germany or The Holocaust this is a book you won't regret buying. In fact, I'm certain you'll remember it for the rest of your life.

First Rate!

Only those who have survived the holocaust truly know the real horrors of this twentieth century hell on earth. No matter how much the rest of us learn about this living nightmare, we will never fully comprehend what went on because it will always be second hand. To make judgments about how Jewish people chose to survive seems so wrong. Yet, as I continued to read "The Nazi Officer's Wife," I could not keep from uttering some form of audible shock on certain choices Ms. Hahn made along the way. For example, it was impossible for me to comprehend her determination to stay with Pepi long after it was apparent that he would never emigrate with her or even commit to her and that his "love" for her was a distant second to the loyalty he felt for his mother. I clearly see the necessity of becoming a German's lover and then wife in order to survive, but I can not understand why Edith's pressed to have a child with Werner Vertter in the worst of times. From the moment of conception this baby's life was at risk. Uncertain of her future with a man who did not even know the real Edith Hahn, this writer relates how, after the war, her daughter was baptized. Already knowing then that so many Jewish lives had been lost throughout Europe, did another Jewish identity need to be erased? I wanted to cry when Edith ended her relationship with the orphan, Gretl. If Edith ever tried to keep her "little family" together, she did not relate that in her book. Finally, of course, after all the history and all the passing years, Edith could not stop being in touch with the man who was never there for her. Though I cannot help but be bothered by certain choices Edith Hahn made, I must quickly add that I admire a woman who lived her "lie" so well for so long that she became a survivor.