Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica FischerThis is a non-fiction accou
Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica FischerThis is a non-fiction account of two lovers, Felice, a Jew in disguise in 1940s Berlin and Lilly, a Nazi soldier’s wife who first befriends and then agrees to hide Felice. I’ll say right now that it does not end well for Felice so if that is a story you’d rather not read, that’s also pretty understandable. It shows Felice’s life living as a Jew in late 1930s Berlin and the increasing proscriptions against her life in the public sphere. She’s prevented from finishing high school, from going to theaters, buying newspapers, using public transit, and on and on. It also tracks her struggle to legally emigrate and the policies of other countries that shut their doors against fleeing refugees (the author compares this to Europe’s indifference to Bosnian refugees at the time of writing and if you’re an American like me you’ll probably find this section parallels a lot of current discourse). She watches as her friends and acquaintances are “deported” to concentration camps, never to return, and eventually receives her own notice. Instead of acquiescing she fakes a suicide note and goes underground, joining a resistance group that develops fake identification for other German Jews in hiding. The story’s told through love letters between Felice and Lilly, excepts from both Felice and Lilly’s journals, and interviews with the people who knew them. The last section, after Felice is taken by the Gestapo, is almost entirely from Lilly’s diary and it’s heartbreaking to see her pleading for Felice to return long after her letters have stopped being sent. It’s also interesting to read her account of the battle to take Berlin and her brief stay in a camp run by the Russians, with sexual assaults and rapes occurring all around her. All in all it’s the story of a love that no one could have expected and illuminates a lot of the personal horrors and injustices that don’t get discussed as frequently as other topics from this time period. -- source link
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