Recommendations from our site
“It’s a very interesting book. The woman at the centre of it, Hermine Braunsteiner, was a real person. She was a concentration camp guard, known for being extremely vicious.What makes this book so challenging is that you can’t quite dismiss these people. You want to say, well, she was evil and he was delusional. But you’re taken into their world. Hermine is extradited to Germany and stands trial. At the trial, she says: I’m being held scapegoat for a whole system. So many were involved, I took orders, I did what I was told, so why I am the one paying the price?” Read more...
Historical Novels About Women Written Out of History
Alice Jolly, Novelist
“Essentially, this novel asks the reader many uncomfortable questions about responsibility. When does it rest with others? When does it rest with you? Hermine Braunsteiner is a New York suburban housewife whose past as an ambitious female Nazi concentration camp guard catches up with her. The reader watches Hermine’s post-war American life, and that of her faithful husband, unravel. The book time-travels and has two narrators: we see the German camps through Hermine’s eyes, and we see Hermine through her husband’s eyes.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction of 2025
Katharine Grant, Historical Novelist
