Saving Amelie (Audible Audio Edition) Cathy Gohlke Rachel Botchan Recorded Books Books
Download As PDF : Saving Amelie (Audible Audio Edition) Cathy Gohlke Rachel Botchan Recorded Books Books
Increasingly wary of her father's genetic research, Rachel Kramer has determined that this trip with him to Germany - in the summer of 1939 - will be her last. But a cryptic letter from her estranged friend, begging Rachel for help, changes everything.
Married to SS officer Gerhardt Schlick, Kristine sees the dark tides turning and fears her husband views their daughter, Amelie, deaf since birth, as a blight on his Aryan bloodline. Once courted by Schlick, Rachel knows he's as dangerous as the swastikas that hang like ebony spiders from every government building in Berlin. She fears her father's files may hold answers about Hitler's plans for others, like Amelie, whom the regime deems "unworthy of life". She risks searching his classified documents only to uncover shocking secrets about her own history and a family she's never known.
Now hunted by the SS, Rachel turns to Jason Young - a driven, disarming American journalist and unlikely ally - who connects her to the resistance and to controversial theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Forced into hiding, Rachel's every ideal is challenged as she and Jason walk a knife's edge, risking their lives - and asking others to do the same - for those they barely know but come to love.
Saving Amelie (Audible Audio Edition) Cathy Gohlke Rachel Botchan Recorded Books Books
I really enjoyed this book. I had read a similar series by Bodie Thoene about 20 years ago which this book reminded me of. But this was just one book and that was a six novel series. This book just covered the first two of the Hitler years. It had various characters narrate at different times so it offered many points of view. The characters grew as the book went on. Rachel went from the spoiled and selfish daughter of the eugenics scientist to a caring and selfless friend. The interaction with the reporter, Jason, and Detrich Bonhoeffer helped change her perspective to show compassion to those she had been raised to disdain. She went from being resentful of sharing her hiding place with a Jewish teenager to embracing her as a sister.I think the biggest aspect of the book for me was seeing how the German culture put patriotism ahead of faith and slowly came to tolerate, if not accept, the terrible policies of the Nazi regime. They were fearful of speaking up so ended up furthering the Nazi agenda. My own father was an American prisoner of war in Germany. While he was terribly mistreated he always told me that it was the Nazis, not the people or even the soldiers, who were to blame for what happened. By the time the people started to realize and believe what was happening, it was too late. If they spoke up they would have been imprisoned or killed. Even so, there were many who risked their own lives as well as their families to save those who the Nazis wanted to destroy.
I think this book made me consider our own country where laws are passed that we don't agree with. The separation of the 3 branches of government is no longer effective. We can speak up but usually to no effect. I fear that if something doesn't change soon we may be going down the same path as Germany.
All in all a very good and thought provoking book.
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Saving Amelie (Audible Audio Edition) Cathy Gohlke Rachel Botchan Recorded Books Books Reviews
Synopsis
The time is 1939 and the place is Germany. Hitler has taken over power and has started his crusade for a perfect German race, a race of perfect people, free of disease and handicaps. Rachel Kramer, daughter of an internationally noted eugenics scientist, has traveled with her father to Germany to share his genetic research with the new, "progressive" minds of the Third Reich.
While there, Rachel runs into her old childhood friend, Kristine, now the wife of SS officer Gerhardt Schlick. Kristine secretly contacts Rachel with the news that her 4 year old daughter, Amelie, is in danger. Born deaf, Amelie is about to be subject to the Reich's genetic cleansing, freeing up precious German space needed for new, perfect babies to be born. Kristine begs Rachel to save Amelie by taking her to America and raising her as her own daughter.
Unsure of Hitler's plans and knowing her father is somehow involved, Rachel risks discovery by looking at her father's private eugenics research and discovers shocking information about his subjects, herself included. Now hunted by the Reich, Rachel enlists the help of American journalist, Jason Young, to save young Amelie and then to save Rachel, herself.
My Thoughts
I love books about World War II. And I loved the premise of this book, but in so many ways, it didn't live up to it's promises. On the good side, I loved the things this book made me think about, things I had never heard before. Everyone has heard about Hitler wanting the perfect Aryan race and that his master plan to rid Europe of Jews was part of that ethnic cleansing. But what I had not heard before was that he was ridding Germany of undesirable non-Jews long before the war got started. Handicapped children being taken to centers for "treatment" were gassed in an effort to provide more space for the perfect Aryan babies that were being born to the Reich. Beautiful blue-eyed, blonde haired children who just happened to be born deaf or blind. If the Third Reich could kill it's own children, it wasn't a far slide to start killing others.
I also like the way the book portrayed the average German citizen through the war. We always think of them all as bad guys. But the average German, especially those in the countryside, weren't bad guys. Most were not even on board with Hitler's way of thinking. Their crime was not speaking up to stop something before it had gone too far, before it was too late to stop it. Even the average German soldier didn't agree with everything his superiors had him do. Most of the soldiers were drafted into service and were forced to follow orders whether they agreed with them or not. I have new found sympathy for German citizens and soldiers of WWII after reading this book.
Now for the critique. I thought the book was way too long and drawn out. Maybe that made it more realistic, I don't know. I'm sure people in hiding had many more boring days than exciting ones. However, it made the book boring at times. In the same sense, other parts of the book felt overly dramatic, like she was trying to convey excitement or anticipation but I didn't feel any excitement until the final few chapters.
I also felt like there were several loose ends in the book that didn't get tied up. For instance, the author started to make Rachel's father act repentant or, at the very least, unsure about his research. But then we never find out anything about his motives. We know what Rachel thinks, but not how he truly feels. Why change his behavior from the beginning of the book, if you're not going to tell us why it changed.
This may be nit-picky, but several times in the book, the characters said things verbatim that would have been better off as just an inference for the reader to draw from. In one scene Rachel talks to the curate about the fate of America as it pertains to God and Christianity. It would have been better for the scene to have ended with the question, "Could this ever happen in America?" But instead Rachel spells out all the things that could never happen in America (of course, all of those have taken place which was the author's point). As a reader, I prefer to think through things like that on my own instead of having them all spelled out for me.
Overall, Saving Amelie was a good book, but I was expecting it be a great book, and in that, I was disappointed. It did bring new things to light and make me think more fully about the German side of WWII. But I wanted to like it more than I did.
I was provided with a complementary version of this book from Tyndale publishers in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
I really enjoyed this book. I had read a similar series by Bodie Thoene about 20 years ago which this book reminded me of. But this was just one book and that was a six novel series. This book just covered the first two of the Hitler years. It had various characters narrate at different times so it offered many points of view. The characters grew as the book went on. Rachel went from the spoiled and selfish daughter of the eugenics scientist to a caring and selfless friend. The interaction with the reporter, Jason, and Detrich Bonhoeffer helped change her perspective to show compassion to those she had been raised to disdain. She went from being resentful of sharing her hiding place with a Jewish teenager to embracing her as a sister.
I think the biggest aspect of the book for me was seeing how the German culture put patriotism ahead of faith and slowly came to tolerate, if not accept, the terrible policies of the Nazi regime. They were fearful of speaking up so ended up furthering the Nazi agenda. My own father was an American prisoner of war in Germany. While he was terribly mistreated he always told me that it was the Nazis, not the people or even the soldiers, who were to blame for what happened. By the time the people started to realize and believe what was happening, it was too late. If they spoke up they would have been imprisoned or killed. Even so, there were many who risked their own lives as well as their families to save those who the Nazis wanted to destroy.
I think this book made me consider our own country where laws are passed that we don't agree with. The separation of the 3 branches of government is no longer effective. We can speak up but usually to no effect. I fear that if something doesn't change soon we may be going down the same path as Germany.
All in all a very good and thought provoking book.
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