The German Girl

The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
Published October 18, 2016 by Atria
Rating: ★★★★




When eleven-year-old Hannah Rosenthal winds up on the cover of the German Girl, a Nazi propaganda magazine for pre-teen girls, it's almost a sick joke. Because if her childhood in Berlin living amongst the "Ogres" has taught her anything it's that she's not German-- not pure, not wanted, barely tolerated. Her blonde hair and blue eyes can do nothing to change that. By 1939, her family is more or less holed up in their apartment building, the one that's been in her mother's family for decades but that the Ogres now want for themselves. The Rosenthal family's tenants used to respect them, but now they ask "Why won't they just leave?" (the building they own! the country of their birth!)"Why are they still here? Don't they know how uncomfortable this situation is making us?"

And Hannah's family does leave, because as Jews they don't really have any other options. The Ogres arrest Hannah's father, only allowing the family to leave the country if they turn over all their assets. But it's worth it for the chance to escape to Cuba, where they will go on to America. Along with 900 other Jewish passengers, including Hannah's best friend, Leo Martin, the Rosenthals set sail on the MS St. Louisbound for Havana. In one final insult, all the passengers are forced to buy return tickets, even though everyone knows this is a one way trip.

For two weeks, they're human beings again. Their captain, a German but not an Ogre, makes sure that his passengers were treated with respect. There is fine dining, dancing, and swimming. It's almost a dream vacation.

It ends in a nightmare. Unknown to the passengers aboard, the Cuban government had retroactively invalidated almost everyone's visas. Hannah and her pregnant mother are allowed to disembark, but her father and Leo are still on ship as it is forced to sail away from salvation. 

But Cuba doesn't turn out to be a salvation for Hannah, not really. Even though she lives to become an old woman, her life pretty much ended in 1939.

The German Girl is told from two perspectives: Hannah and Anna, her only living relative. Hannah's story follows the events of 1939, from life in Berlin, where her only refuge is in her friend Leo, to the sailing of the St. Louis, to life in Cuba afterwards. Anna is her grand-niece. She comes to Cuba to meet with Hannah and learn about her father's past. Anna's father died before she was born on 9/11.

The historical subject matter of this book is pretty fascinating, but I wasn't always riveted by the The German Girl. The writing is beautiful, but I don't read a book like this for the glamour. This book was slow for me to get through. I will say the ending was masterful. I don't know that I would have given this book 4 stars otherwise. Overall, this is a book that grows on you and gets better as it goes on.

I don't feel like we get to know too much about Anna. Hannah definitely dominates this book, but even then we get a lot of "I wish I had said" and "what I wanted to do was" and not a lot of genuine action. Hannah is definitely stuck in her own head a lot.

I loved the story of Hannah and Leo. I enjoyed the parallels between Nazi German and Communist Cuba. When the passengers boarded the St. Louis, crowds jeered and spit on them. Newspapers covered the event with the words: "Good Riddance!" The same exact thing happened to Cubans fleeing the island to America. The Nazis took Hannah's mother's apartment building; the Cuban state took her pharmacy. Their Cuban maid's nephew became an "enemy of the state" as a Jehovah's Witness and sent to a work camp, with a huge sign at the entrance that read: "Work will make men of you."

Sounds familiar, no?



I recommend this book to fans of historical fiction, lovers of beautiful writing, and ww2 buffs. I also recommend learning about the real St. Louis and especially its hero captain Gustav Schroder.