Review : "The Girls in the Attic"

How do you choose your literary destination? I think that there must be certain key elements that convince you to choose one book or another. I chose The Girls In The Attic by Marius Gabriel, according to the following criteria:

It's a historical fiction (my favorite literary genre);
A novel set during the Second World War;
Cover description;
Title and cover design.

The Girls In The Attic is the first book I have read by Marius Gabriel and I must admit that it exceeded my expectations. The “accusation” leveled at the author by Cosmopolitan Magazine: “You burn your food on the fire while reading his books” turned out quite justified. Luckily, I didn't cook anything during the short time in which the story completely engrossed me, keeping me breathless throughout the 398 pages, which were full of intense emotions.

A journey into the past...

The story is about Lola's confession to her daughter, about a secret well-kept for over 65 years. Page after page, we drift through time, arriving in the spring of 1944 in Germany, in a Europe devasted by war. It portrays a dark world in which Jews are considered subhuman, therefore for this reason, they are hounded and sent to camps, in which the terror imposed by the Gestapo, the SS, and the Ordnungspolizei, spreads its monstrous tentacles through the streets of the cities, into people's homes and souls.

Max Wolff is a controversial character, a young man who fought devotedly for the Reich, indoctrinated by Nazi ideas and convinced that his father, a pastor who opposed Hitler's regime, was a traitor who brought shame to his family. Injured in the head, he is sent home to Kallenheim, where he is faced with an impossible situation that he does not know how to resolve.

His sense of loyalty to his belief in Nazism gradually begins to waver and erode as he meets the two young Jewish girls, hidden by his mother, and begins to discover himself.

As the story unfolds in front of our eyes, we witness with emotion the transformation of Max and Lola, the feelings that develop between them, the traumatic journey from Kallenheim to Bavaria, and the desperate attempt to escape Allied bombing, Nazi brutality, and Soviet soldiers.

"I learned something ... When you shut up, they walk all over you. I'll never shut up again, I promise. If I have to die, I'll die screaming."

... that keeps you close to the characters' hearts

The novel is very well-crafted, with a fast pace and numerous borderline situations, making your heart leap out of your chest at the sound of the bombs, look terrified through the eyes of the characters, the destruction of cities and human losses, to feel with them the love, calm, and freedom of the moments spent under the pear tree, in the garden or the country house near Dresden.

I recommend the novel The Girls In The Attic because the writing captures the real horrors of war, in opposition to the power of love and humanity.