Those Who Save Us

by Jenna Blum

Libby 731 pages

Published: 2005

Genre: historical fiction, relationships

 

Libby said the book was 775 pages, so when I got to the acknowledgements on page 732, I thought, "Where's the rest of the story?!" The last forty pages were a preview of another book. I wanted more resolution! I wanted another conversation between Trudy and Anna!

 

This was a really, really hard book for me. It went between the 1990s in Minnesota (Trudy focus) and 1940s Germany (Anna focus). There were a lot of really graphic and difficult parts to read. There was a lot of sex, violence, cruelty, evil . . . not a surprise for Nazi Germany.  

"For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald.

Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life."

 

I actually don't think that blurb really describes the essence of the book. Anna's choices have definitely impacted Trudy's life, but the photograph doesn't even come to Trudy until she puts Anna in a nursing home. There is so much pain in their relationship and Trudy's vague memories of her early life in Germany are like hauntings. Also, she barely starts to get at Anna's truth until the very end of the book! There's so much more about Max, Anna's father, the liberation of Buchenwald, Mathilde's death, . . .

 

This book was well-written, but hard to read at times. I checked it out because of how much I enjoyed her book Woodrow on the Bench. Blum is a talented writer.

Woodrow on the Bench

by Jenna Blum

Libby eBook

Published: 2021

Genre: non-fiction, dog

Wow. She's a good writer. I was sobbing in the car as I read it. I told Louie, "it's about an old dog and the owner doesn't want to have to put him down because he still likes walks and treats." He said, "Just like Pepper." Blum is a really talented writer. I've already checked out another book of hers.

This! I hadn't heard of this before: www.journeyspet.com Quality of Life Scale Calculator! Jumping or mobility, ouch or  pain, uncertainty and understanding, respiration or breathing, neatness or hygiene, eating and drinking, you, social ability . . . there's a scoring system. A higher score is better ("80 is a happy, healthy pet!") "A score of 8 is a pet that is suffering. A low score on any of the measures may be a reason to consider euthanasia." I definitely think it's helpful to have a scale.

Page 51 - "Much of August passed this way: Woodrow napped in the water like a hippo, I worked with my feet on his back. Sometimes I set my iPad down and watched Woodrow sleep and thought about those swims when he was younger, how he'd leaped for hours from a rocky cliff into a Minnesota quarry or picked up the lawn sprinkler and chased Jim and me around the yard with it. I thought about my mom's life, too, or rather the end of it, how she went from shopping excursions to sitting in the parking lot at the beach because she was too weak to get out of the car, from sunning on her front walkway with her coffee and the Palm Beach Post to watching TV in the bedroom to finally just her bed. Her existence had dwindled like that small white square on old TVs, shrinking until it winked out altogether. Woodrow might wallow, but he would never swim again."

 

Her grief and sadness over losing her mom (I think) made her more determined not to say goodbye to her dog. That aging, slowing down, diminishing world . . . is very sobering. I want my life to matter. I want to live big while I can. I miss my mom.

Page 116 - "I sighed inwardly. Privately, I found the concept of self-care - like the advice to 'Live your best life!' - somewhat tyrannical. A nice concept, but often difficult to execute. What was wrong with living one's most mediocre life and being content with it?"

This made me laugh! "Living one's most mediocre life" is an encouraging concept when you feel low energy.