“It was the lack of anything to do that weighed most heavily, draining every ounce of energy, any resistance.”
Some true stories read like fiction. A Bookshop in Berlin is the true story of one woman’s survival during WW2. She starts the war owning a French bookshop in Berlin. She is a Polish Jew, but her store survives Kristalnacht due to her reputation in the community. However, from then on, she is on the run with “no place to lay her head” (the original title for the book). She escapes to France, but hopes to get passage to Switzerland somehow so she can be safe and find out how her family is going in Poland.
I saw A Bookshop in Berlin featured in a book magazine and added it to my to-read list. I requested it from my local library and had to wait several weeks before it was available as an ebook to check out through Libby. I can see why there is a high demand to read this first-hand account of survival.
Francoise often only spends a few nights at one place before needing to go to another place to hide. One of her longest stays is at a hotel, but her stay is cut short when she notices buses outside one day coming back from trying to get some food and follows her instinct to stay away. If she hadn’t, she would have ended up in a concentration camp.
A Bookshop in Berlin fits in well with The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom and Night by Elie Wiesel. They are important reads as they are true, individual stories of people who survived against the odds during a horrible time in world history. I would highly recommend this book and it is written for high school readers and older.
What true story from WW2 has impacted you the most? Share in the comments!