3.5
I enjoyed THE GERMAN GIRL by this author as well. This was a pretty good read, loosely based on two events that occurred during WW II. But more about the resistance and what people went through during that time, although there are many books with similar stories.

Excellent. This follow up story to Correa's German Girl was amazing. The story of the Sternberg sisters is heartfelt, torturous, and captivating. The theme of "Monsters" and "Angels" always being within arms-distance struck me as Lina grew amidst ongoing fear, destruction, and despair, with momentary glimpses of hope and contentment. I won't be able to read another WWII fiction book for a while as the clarity and destruction to all those effected has resonated so deeply within me. I need a breather.

This book is based on a part of history that will live on in infamy along with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Holocaust will forever be a scar on the past. In this book, the terror-filled lives of the children, during World War II, is highlighted along with the day-to-day horrors that the adults faced. Children were often forced to witness the cruel, brutal acts of the Nazis before they could understand what was happening. If no sane person could comprehend it, how could a child? The barbarism of that time is well documented, but no matter how much is written about that shameful era of hate, there is always some new atrocity that is revealed in every book.
Although millions were murdered, that was not the entire story of the times. Parents, though they tried, often could not protect their children. They were forced to abandon them to others in order to save their lives. They were uprooted; their religion was changed or forgotten, along with their true identities. Sometimes rescues were arranged and the children were shipped to other countries, never to see their parents again. Reunions were rare for a number of reasons.
Even as the resistance to Hitler grew, the war raged on and on. Madmen continued to follow his insanity and refused to give up. Nazi behavior was often beyond the scope of anything anyone could have imagined possible. Who could have believed that people would be locked into synagogues to be burnt alive? Who could have imagined graves would be dug to contain hundreds of victims that were mass murdered? Who could have imagined such inhuman and inhumane treatment of any human being? It was incomprehensible, yet, it did occur.
This is the story of Elise Duval “aka” Lina Sternberg, daughter of Julius and Amanda and sister of Vera. Lina spent her formative years under the threat of capture by Hitler’s thugs. There were strangers who risked their own lives to save the innocent victims, but if caught, they would be subjected to the same punishment and death. Undesirables were beaten, murdered, shamed, starved, robbed and worse. Normal life no longer existed for them. They were considered inferior to the Master Race, a race of pure Aryans. For six years, as Hitler attracted the vermin to his cause, to carry out his savage orders, Lina and her mother and sister Vera were on the run. Danielle’s mother, who became known to Lina as maman Claire, protected her, at first, but ultimately, Danielle Duval and Lina, soon to be known as Elise Duval, were sheltered in a church. The children never knew who might turn on them; they never knew whom they could trust. They lived with constant terror.
Elise Duval who was once Lina Sternberg, doesn’t regain her own identity for eight decades, and then, it almost kills her.