About This Book
In 1935 many in Germany saw Hitler as the answer to their prayers. In their eyes he was a man of vision, courage, and determination, a leader ready to take them out of darkness and into the light by reclaiming Germany's rightful place as a world power. Among them is Hannah Koch, a girl of nine who longs to be part of this new world order. It is a dream, however, that is denied her, for her father is a Jew.
When the opportunity to escape her heritage and join others her age in building a new and stronger Germany comes her way, Hannah does not hesitate to seize it even though the cost is incredibly steep. The need to turn away from a religion that has brought her nothing but grief is of little consequence Hannah. Doing so by being adopted by Lena and Ernst Richter, on the other hand, does present her with a dilemma that cannot be easily ignored, for Richter is an SS officer, a member of the very organization that is at the heart of the persecution of Germany's Jews. Still, in the eyes of a nine year old, anything is better than living as an outcast, spurned by the very society she wishes to be part of.
Hannah's acceptance as part of the Richter household is greatly aided by her blond hair and striking blue eyes, proof according to Hauptsturmfürher Ernst Richter of her Aryan heritage. This, combined with her single-minded determination to become the perfect German girl, leads the ambitious SS officer to adopt her.
Hannah's idyllic, if precarious existence as the daughter of an important member of the SS begins to unravel in 1942 when Richter takes command of a concentration camp in Poland. It is there that she is confronted with the terrible truth of what Richter and men like him have been doing in the name of the German people, opening a rift between her and her adopted family. As the end of the war nears, and Ernst Richter is ordered to destroy all evidence of war crimes he has been the author of, Hannah risks all in an effort to save a single life and, by doing so, her soul.
This work was inspired by the true life story of Solomon Perel, a German Jew who survived the Holocaust by masquerading as an ethnic German as recounted in his book I Was Hitler Youth Salomon, republished under the title Europa, Europa, (ISBN-13: 978-0471172185), and the 1990 movie Europa, Europa.
