Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 (Paperback)

by Erica Fischer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Acclaimed in Germany and England, this tragic and remarkable real-life love story won a Lambda Literary Award when it was first published in America in 1995. Lilly Wust ("Aimée") was a conventional middle-class mother of four, estranged from her philandering husband, when she met Felice Schragenheim ("Jaguar") in 1941. Their passionate affair unfolded against the backdrop of the deportation of Jews from Berlin, but several months passed before Felice could even bring herself to tell Lilly that she was Jewish and living illegally on the streets. "I knew, of course, what it meant," Lilly recalled in old age. "Not for a moment did I think that I too could be in danger. On the contrary, all I wanted to do now was to save her." Lilly's heroic efforts to conceal and protect Felice through the next two years make for painful and inspiring reading. Felice was arrested in August 1944 and sent her last letter to Lilly four months later. In 1981 Lilly was awarded the German Federal Service Cross, though no one could read this as a happy ending. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
This book doesn't seem to realize it is less about lesbianism and love than it is a jolting social history?achtung. It purports to be a tender wartime memoir of two Berlin lesbian lovers, one of whom turns out to be perhaps the most ordinary woman in Nazi Germany. It is hard to put down. Our sympathy is tapped because one of the lovers, Felice Schragenheim (Jaguar), is a U-boat?a Jew living underground. Fischer, a Viennese feminist and journalist, pieces together diaries, interviews, reminiscences?sometimes self-serving in the extreme on the part of their authors. For instance, 80-year-old Elisabeth Wust (Aimee) swears in interviews with the dubious Fischer that she didn't now what the Nazis were doing to the Jews, yet the instant Soviet troops tramped into Berlin, she passed off herself and her four kids as Jewish. Her husband, a Nazi officer, was swallowed up on the eastern front while Aimee dallied with every Heinz, Dick and Harry who crossed her threshold, as well as women lovers. The diary entries of Elisabeth reflect the unreflective, self-centered musings of a hausfrau that are in their own way as revealing of the Gotterdammerung of Nazi Germany as any report by a minister of state. Tumbling into obscurity in the postwar years, Elisabeth hangs on to her love for the lost Felice, and all that spent passion comes across as simply obsession.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555834507
• ISBN-13: 978-1555834500
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,001 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing, piquant read, March 10, 1999

By A Customer

The most shocking-- and delightful-- aspect of this book is its refusal to sink into our notions of the conventional love story. While involving unconventional characters, I still expected it to be a 1943 Berlin version of _Love Story_. Thankfully, it is not. There are no happy endings in any sense, as Fischer does not deify either character and refuses to expunge parts of the story that sully either Lilly or Felice. There are problems, fights, questions of motivations. After reading this book, you will remain lost in a world of "why"s and "what if"s.

Fischer provides an historical account that, unlike many, is inhabited by multi-dimensional people that both intrigue and frustrate.

One of the best books I have ever read. I can not stop thinking about it.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible experience, February 23, 1999

By	Elissa Altman ([e-mail]) (New York) - See all my reviews

In 1995 when I worked for HarperCollins (the hardcover publisher of Aimee & Jaguar), I had the amazing experience of co-editing Edna McCown's brilliant translation of this book from the original German. In an industry rife with commercialism, at a time when the reasons why I became an editor were becoming murky, I found myself working on this book that would remain an enormous part of who I am both personally and professionally. The story of Felice Schragenheim and Lilly Wust is a time-honored classic tale of a love that defied all obstacles, from the horrific devastation of the Holocaust, to the proscribed confines of society, to the simple passage of time. I can think of no greater gift that any one lover can give another than to tell their story, the way Lilly Wust did, after more than half a century of silence. Although she died more than 50 years ago, Felice Schragenheim will always be alive in the hearts of readers of this book, and in the hearts of all those who see the movie when it comes out here in the US. Aimee & Jaguar is at once an inside look at "underground" life in Berlin during Nazi Germany, a look at two very different women who came together under the most bizarre of circumstances, and ultimately a testament to the strength of love in the face of adversity. And I'm sure that Lilly's "Rosenkavalier" is looking down, smiling at the fact that, as she predicted, they "would always be together." I hope this story moves other readers as much as it moved and continues to move me. There is nothing quite like it.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars -, March 4, 1999

By A Customer

I basically read through this book in one sitting - it is emotionally gripping and interesting from a historical standpoint as well. Though I am left with a few unanswered questions and am frustrated at certain blanks in the narrative, the sincerity of the story makes up for this (if the exact chronology were easier to follow, I would have given the book five stars). The format of the book also works well; the mix of diary entries, historical back-ground, poems, letters, and personal testimonies permits the reader to piece together herself the many elements of this touching story. Not only is _Aimee & Jaguar_ difficult to put down, it is also difficult to leave down: there is a strong temptation to pick up the story of Lilly and Felice again and re-read the lines of discovery, love, and loss.