Françoise Frenkel always loved books, libraries, and especially bookstores.

Her dream was to open a bookstore, but would her dream about opening a French bookstore in Berlin in 1920 be a good idea?

She was successful until 1935 when the police started showing up and confiscating books from her shelves and newspapers because they had been blacklisted.

Besides scrutinizing her books, they questioned her travels. This was just the beginning of her hardships and ordeals.

A BOOKSHOP IN BERLIN tells the story of Francoise Frenkel's life and her love of books, her bookshop, and France. We follow her as she lives through occupied France and endures what the European people had to deal with. Unthinkable, unpleasant misery and situations plagued her and all people during this time.

A BOOKSHOP IN BERLIN is a treasure for historical fiction fans as well as book lovers.

I normally do not read memoirs, but A BOOKSHOP IN BERLIN is very well done and educational.

You were easily put into Francoise’s situations and her emotions were yours. 5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman's Harrowing Escape from the Nazis, Francois Frenkel, author; Patrick Moidano, preface; Jilly Bond, narrator
This book is a rediscovered memoir of Francoise Frenkel. It is written in a beautiful, lyrical, and expressive prose with a vocabulary that is free from the crudeness existing in many books today. It is read by a wonderful narrator who used tone and emphasis at just the right time. In Frenkel’s voice, the reader is taken through a detailed description of the decline of life in Europe as it falls under Hitler’s control.
Alternating between moments that seem idyllic and peaceful, as she, a lover of books, operates her French book shop in Berlin and interacts with her favorite customers, there are moments of terror and danger, violence and brutality. She is a foreigner, of Polish heritage, and a Jew, in a country that reveres Aryans and finds Jews reprehensible. The book cracks a window on how her life changed under the Nazis influence, how people reacted to her, and how the draconian rules altered the worldview of those in her immediate environment.
Frenkel was lucky to have good friends, influential friends, the funds to help herself, and the personal courage to face the perils that awaited her on her journey to her ultimate freedom. Not everyone in her situation would be as fortunate. No one could have imagined the horrors that Hitler planned. In some ways the memoir oversimplified the most tragic event of the 20th century. The population simply seemed largely naïve and incredulous as race laws were drafted and implemented and Jews and others were arrested with abandon and unnecessary violence. There seemed to be very little active resistance to Hitler in Germany. Rather he had full and loyal support.
I found the absence of some kind of deep emotional response and/or anger, overall, by most of the people with whom she interacted, to be completely disheartening. Since I know that there was an underground and there were many unsung heroes that gave their lives to stand in Hitler’s way, my own knowledge somewhat mitigated my disappointment. The idea that the need to “simply do their job” was the overriding principle coupled with a general feeling of disbelief by the citizenry about what was happening was disturbing. France had fallen, other countries were falling. What were those who acquiesced to Hitler thinking?
As a foreigner in Germany, as the new laws were written, Francoise couldn’t obtain work or travel papers. She was also Jewish. The description of the history of events, her own personal effort to flee, her eventual capture and imprisonment, coupled with the stories of the abuse and the cruelty the prisoners faced, was informative, but no new light was shed on the reasons the Holocaust even came to pass or on how to prevent another.
Just because of a series of lucky coincidences and lucky encounters, Francoise was able to survive and eventually travel to America. Others were not so lucky. Although she thought she lived through the worst moments anyone could, and they were traumatic for her, no doubt about it, far worse was yet to come for others who were captured, sent to prison and than herded off to Concentration Camps. She was lucky to have the wherewithal to support and defend herself financially, the relatives and influential friends who could help her, and the strength to face whatever came before her.