Walls: Resisting the Third Reich--One Woman's Story (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Hiltgunt Zassenhaus is a schoolgirl in 1933 when she acts in defiance and refuses to join the rest of the class in proclaiming "Heil, Hitler" each morning. A summer vacation in Denmark provokes her interest in Scandinavian languages, which later forms the foundation for her resistance work. Assigned by the Germans as an official interpreter, she is to censor the letters from Scandinavian political prisoners and oversee visits between the prisoners and a Norwegian minister. Secretly, she begins to keep files on "her" prisoners. During visits, she smuggles in vitamins, food, paper, books, anything she can fit in a purse or suitcase. Three times she is called in for questioning by the Gestapo. Her friends urge her repeatedly to flee, but she refuses, and it is her secret files that allow the Swedish Red Cross to locate Scandinavian prisoners and get them out of Germany before the massive killings of political prisoners at the end of the war. Hiltgunt Zassenhaus is philosophical by nature and she intends this book to serve not only as a memoir but as a warning across time, a reminder to people that the conditions that created Hitler are still present. Mixed with nerve-wracking episodes, deaths and near-misses are many moments of reflection on human nature, evil, the importance of assisting others - and of never taking freedom for granted.-- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister

Product Description

Resisting the Third Reich-One Woman"s Story
New Foreword by Katherine Paterson
Best Book of the Year--American Literary Association



An enthralling and inspiring account of one woman"s experience in wartime Germany.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807063452
• ISBN-13: 978-0807063453
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,176,209 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Woman's resistance in face of Naziism is powerful, February 16, 1999

By A Customer

I am a Lutheran church librarian who was given this book as a donation to our library from a parishioner's teenage daughter who was assigned to read it in school. This is an excellent book about resisting Naziism by a German woman who risked her life to help others. The interesting thing about this woman's story is that she treaded such a fine line. She was not a member of the Nazi party. She expected to be found out and killed at any moment. Time and again she underwent Gestapo questioning for no reason other than to scare her. Even so, her degree in Scandinavian languages gave her a certain amount of power and prestige within the Nazi system that allowed her to give food, medicine and religious support to Scandinavian political prisoners imprisoned all over Germany. Her descriptions of the bombings of Hamburg and Dresden are especially interesting. So often we focus on the horrible things done to the Jews and gypsies in the Holocaust, as we well should. But we must also rmember that the German people were also victims of this terrible regime. Some helped the regime and others fought it. I very much enjoyed this book and recommend it. I read it in a day. Not difficult, but hard to put down.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving, powerful story of courage and conscience, September 27, 1998

By A Customer

Hiltgunt's parent taught her to think for herself and were liberals. Her father lost his job as a teacher for among other things praising Albert Schweizer and his "reverence for life" ideology. Apparently the Nazis didn't buy into that. One morning they awoke to find their house plastered with yellow paper covered with Swastikas.

Her first act of resistance was to refuse to give the Nazi salute every morning in school.

She graduated from Hamburg University with a degree in Scandinavian languages. This was a very rare degree and she was drafted to be a postal censor reading the mail between the Ghettos and Scandinavia. Rather than destroy letters with forbidden content, she found another way to send them on to Scandinavia. In particular whe was supposed to censor any requests for food. In fact shed did the opposite and added requests for food to many letters.

Later, Norwegian and Danish prisoners convicted of resisting the Third Reich were imprisoned in Hamburg. Hiltgunt was assigned to monitor the prison visits of a minister to the prisoners. structions were to prevent spiritual guidance and prayer (a rule she broke on the very first visit.) She ended up smuggling food and vitamins to the prisoners on every visit.

How could a young woman risk her life constantly in order to perform these acts of kindness in the midst of the insanity of WW2 and the destruction of her home town? Ultimately, she was responsible for saving the lives of hundreds of Norwegian and Danish prisoners.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Small Stand Against Nazi Germany, March 10, 2004

By	Lawrence G Coatney "Geno" (Pagosa Springs, Colorado USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Walls: Resisting the Third Reich--One Woman's Story. (Hardcover)

This is one of those amazing books that is excruiciatingly hard to put down. Written in an extremely easy to read style, this autobiogrophy pulls the reader into Nazi Germany to show a take on World War 2 that you don't often read about.

Growing up in Germany, Hiltgunt grew and matured at the same time as the Nazi party. Raised in a family with no love for the Nazis, she was constantly aware of their danger.

After getting her degree in scandanavian languages, she was eventually picked (being the only one in the new Germany with one) to be the interpreter for scandanavian political prisoners. With this unique post, Hiltgunt could basically do things the way she wanted, bringing hope and health to these uncared for people.

She describes a country racked with fear of their leader, doing Hitler's will just to stay alive and avoid the Gestopo. In more than one instance, she had a run-in with the Gestapo herself. Amazingly enough, she was allowed to continue what she was doing, as long as she "reported" on Nazi resisters, not knowing that she herself was one. After questioning her again, they miraculously released her once more!

One of the best things about Hiltgunt, is her ability to look back and not praise herself, but humble herself and recognize how selfish she was in trying to survive. Nominated for the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, I'm only now wanting to learn who could have won it after a story like this.

I would unquestionably reccomend this book to anyone wanting to understand more of World War 2.