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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fresh and enlightening perspective, December 29, 2009
This review is from: auf Wiedersehen (Paperback)
Lately, I've been having something of a World War II binge. I watched Band of Brothers from start to finish while concurrently being enthralled by the National Geographic documentary Apocalypse: World War Two. Then auf Wiedersehen landed on my doorstep. It was, as it turns out, the perfect complement to my self education in the horror of previous generations. Not only is it a memoir, it is a memoir of a young German girl and the impact that the war had on her and her family, a vice we don't often hear from. The story picks up in the final scenes of World War Two - the Russians are closing in from the East, the Americans and the British approaching from the West. Hitler's Germany is disintegrating and as a result, her people are suffering.
Some 50 million people died as a result of this war: soldiers blown up in trenches; civilians bombed in their homes; Jews, Gyspies and homosexuals persecuted and tortured for not fitting the ideals of a madman, and more. It's just too colossal a figure to give any serious emotional or intellectual consideration to. The horror is too much, the body count too high. No words can stretch far enough to do it justice. Which is where this book excels: it doesn't try to. It quietly tells the story of one girl and that's all. Occasionally there are facts about recognizable events from the war in the narrative: the bombing of Dresden, the liberation of the Treblinka concentration camp, the bombing of Hiroshima, but overall the narrative focuses firmly on the domestic and the interior. Something we can all relate to and process.
Forced from their comfortable home, Christa and her family are made refugees. They are homeless and at the mercy of those around them. Their mother's Prussian pride takes a beating, their stomachs are left empty and they endure the heartbreak of having to constantly say auf Wiedersehen to those they hold dear. Yet, through it all, their spirit triumphs - particularly Christa's. Her effervescent personality and headlong enthusiasm for life beams out from the pages as she falls in 'love' with one boy after the next, puts on puppet shows with new-found friends and prays fervently to God to get her out of attending school.
This book is a quick, yet satisfying read. I read it all on the evening that I received it and enjoyed every last page. If there were anything to criticize about this book, however, it would have to be its length. I got to the final pages and wanted to know more - it seemed that there could be so much more said and explored. What happened next? How did they cope with the next set of new circumstances? At 142 pages, there was certainly room for more story. Having said that, the 142 pages that we do get are very good. Holder Ocker writes beautifully and the character of her younger self is engaging and loveable. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in WWII, loves memoirs or simply enjoys a good, well-written yarn from teenaged readers through to adults. You won't be disappointed.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story of honor, love, strength and hope..., October 13, 2009
This review is from: auf Wiedersehen (Paperback)
This touching and well-written book is the universal story of many immigrants who suffer displacement and loss because they seek a better and, more importantly, more honorable life.
The children's escapades within the ruins of war are funny and heart-warming. The loss of home is heart-wrenching and palpable. But it is the strength of Christa's mother to undertake this journey that is particularly admirable and visionary.
Christa Holder Ocker has the ability to portray in her characters those unique attributes which allow the reader to understand why such a journey from a previously comfortable home to an unknown, but hopeful future, was undertaken.
It is a book well worth reading.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eric Muller, February 28, 2011
This review is from: auf Wiedersehen (Paperback)
I finally got round to purchasing and reading auf Wiedersehn. It is always interesting and intriguing to read an account of that harrowing time period during the war, and the years immediately after the war. When I was young I often heard my parents and their friends talking about it, and so many of them had, in one way or another, been through it, and experienced their own hardships and loss. Also, as a child, while living in Switzerland, and going traveling with my parents to Germany and Austria, I saw so many people with their arms shot off, or missing a leg. In my one year in a German school, our school doctor was missing a nose (never had plastic surgery done), and my 8th grade teacher barely had a voice left, because she was covered in rubble for three days during the war.
Seeing wartime Germany through the eyes of a child is poignant, because simple observations take on bigger meanings. The atrocities, hardships and sufferings are enhanced through the innocent outlook of a child, who cannot yet comprehend the scope of the war. The smell of the prevailing "evil" percolates into the present, and the author was able to thread that into her story in a subtle manner. Though life was hard, one could sense that for many it was so much worse. One sensed the shadow side of humanity in the periphery. However, also underscored is the goodness of humanity, even in the worst of times. The will to survive, as shown in auf Wiedersehen, gives hope.
Eric Muller
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