 "A love story destroyed by war" | 2010-02-07 |
| - Reviewed By Fred L. Houpt |
I found this a difficult book to read on several levels. All books that parallel the Holocaust and depths of brutality told in such personal ways communicate a hurt that makes one want to turn away. The book was recommended to me by a colleague and I have just finished the library copy. The closing pages of the book are unfortunate because the author Erica Fischer reveals the depth of her own biases and judgments; I could have lived without reading them. First though the main story.
The temptation to portray this as a lesbian love story are strong but to do so would somehow slightly reduce the humanity of the two main protagonists. That an obviously lesbian Jewish woman tried her best to stay alive in Berlin at a time when the Final Solution was sweeping Jews into the fires of the crematoria and nightmares of the camps is puzzling enough. Felice's choices beg many questions, none of which we will ever have an answer to. As an articulate woman why did she wait until it was too late to flee Germany and join her sister in England? Did she succumb to cloudy feelings that a loving but very dangerous relationship gave? I have to ask if she was fully aware of how dangerous her choice to align herself with a Christian woman whose husband was a member of the Nazi party? In what became a self destructive choice, she lingered and attached herself to a woman without much thought of how the entrapment she was setting for herself could be escaped. Living a life at first somewhat in secret from her lover, hiding her Jewish background, living eventually as a "u-boat" underground does not answer the question of why she would put herself in such peril by openly taunting the Nazis, walking around in broad daylight with her lover, as if to thumb her nose at the tyranny she knew was out to destroy her and all other Jews. Was she being childish and foolish? What then of Lily, who was equally as capable of putting herself and her 4 children at great peril by housing a Jew in her apartment? Was she so blind to the risks?
While too late Felice did try to flee from Germany and by the quirky hand of fate she like many others was trapped behind closed borders after war erupted and England and the United States entered. Now, unable to adequately save herself she decided it would be better to hide in plain sight, putting her fate in the hands of some other power. The more I think about it the more confusing their choices together were. It is clear that Elizabeth had a very unhappy marriage, that her husband was not shy about keeping a mistress. Fine, it happens. She is at first not even aware that Felice and several other ladies in her circle were Jews, lesbians, some well educated and sophisticated. Elizabeth seems oblivious to many realities and somehow only has part of her eyes open to one reality when she and Felice unite sexually. All of a sudden her love of life has returned, perhaps asleep for most of her married life. Fine as well, this too happens in new relationships. What the two of these lovers shared was a tendency to take extreme risks without much thought about the consequences. In this the two of them were equally self indulgent, only wanting and then wanting more self gratification. For Aimee it was to have someone adore and fill her heart up with undivided and complete affection. For Jaguar it was someone that would not only love her but who would protect her physically in the sense of keeping her alive.
On the surface Elizabeth Wust had fallen in love with a woman who happened to be a fearless and lively Jew. That they had naively taken for granted that they could carry on with their relationship without being caught, not thinking deeply enough that prying eyes amongst the very Nazi neighborhood that they lived in would somehow turn against them shows the degrees in which they both ignored the warnings all around. If Elizabeth had not considered how brutal the Gestapo could be then they put all of that to an end when they stormed into her apartment and took Felice away.
Further along in the story Elizabeth showed another extreme side to her personality by insisting that she see Felice in person, first at the Jewish detention center in Berlin and then much later when she had been transferred to the concentration camp at the distant Theresienstadt. At enormous risks to herself and against the strong advise of her friends to not risk the journey, incredibly she manages to get herself to the camp and with courage bordering on insanity she barges in and demands to see Felice? She was lucky that the camp commandant didn't take out his pistol and shoot her right on the spot. In what became a tendency for the remainder of her life she became detached from any realistic perspective on what had become of her lover. We could argue that the bonds of love can inflame anyone and who are we to judge? Good question, but by then Elizabeth was well on the way to suffering the psychic breakdown that took over her life once it became clear that her beloved Jaguar had not survived the war. I was quite surprised that she was able to successfully send parcels and letters to Felice when she was at various camps. I had no idea that such mail and parcels would get delivered to Jewish woman under those circumstances.
The end of the war brought no relief to Elizabeth as it only reinforced what she could not accept, that the love of her life was not coming home and that she could not be replaced. What remains of the story is how Elizabeth withdrew into herself, taking upon herself to preserve the memory of their short but deeply felt relationship, kept hidden in a private sanctuary in her heart where she would not allow any healing light to disturb the always broken soul. What became of her 4 children who witnessed first hand their mother fall apart, having their favorite Jaguar snatched by the Gestapo? One of her children ended up being closely aligned with Jews to such an extent that he emigrated to Israel. After the war, strangely, Elizabeth tried to become a Jew herself, this coming at a time when almost no Jews remained in the burned out husk of Nazi Germany.
The author's bitterness in the closing pages does ask hard questions about Elizabeth. Was she as blind and as oblivious as she wanted others to think of her? Many books portray common Germans as not knowing what was going on from Kristallnacht onwards. Some would say that this is nothing more than a national refusal to acknowledge what everyone knew. The most haunting of questions to that generation would come sometimes from their own children: "What did you do to stop it"? For Elizabeth it was a question that she used against herself in a never ending guilt ridden emptiness. The author finds her hard to like and prefers Felice, who appears more human and vital. This is something we can not judge. The author assumes that Felice would have eventually rejected her Aimee had she been reunited with her. How can we know this? What remains is a heart breaking story of how two lives intersected each other, transformed each other and then were torn apart. We are left with many questions but this too is part of the mystery of all of our motivations, both in war and in peace time. Why do we do what we do? How do we explain to ourselves the choices we make, the entanglements we find ourselves in, the heartbreaks we do not allow to heal? This is a very sad story. The rich details of life in Berlin as the war winds up and down are very informative. I closed the book with a sense of compassion for both of them, both victims on so many levels. A love story indeed. |
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 "An excellent read" | 2007-09-25 |
| - Reviewed By Chibi Rachy from West Virginia |
This book is the very first book to ever make me cry, and I'm one of those people who've read all types of genres. It was captivating and compelling. Like many, I saw the movie first, but when I saw it was a true story, I simply had to have the book as well. I am glad I did. The book provided the background and meaning that the movie left out. Because of the book, I will probably have to rewatch the movie again.
The courage, bravery, and love shown in this novel is beyond compare. It's a read worth reading slowly. |
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 "an unorthodox but gripping book" | 2007-08-14 |
| - Reviewed By C. URen from Berkeley, CA USA |
I enjoyed the film version of "Aimee & Jaguar", but I think the book tells a much deeper story. We get to know the characters on a more profound level: I was especially charmed by the poems both women wrote, especially Jaguar's rhymed comments on her everyday life experiences. The book provides astonishing details about life for Jews who went "underground" in Berlin; somehow, the picture of the slow tightening of the Nazi noose was clearer to me from this book than from the many other works I've read on the period. And Aimee's fate after the war was unexpected--messy, frustrating, and human. A more timid author might have left some of this information out.
I do have a few complaints about Fischer's approach to writing history: I agree with some other reviewers that the story tended to get muddled in the constant mention of unimportant names and dates, and it's difficult to keep track of the minor characters. An index would have helped with this. The author included loads of love letters, which get a little repetitive. I also would have liked to see more photos of Aimee & Jaguar's friends, rather than so many pictures of just the two of them.
I don't have the knowledge to assess how successful Fischer was at capturing lesbian feelings: the love between the characters seemed believable to me, and there was one fairly explicit scene that many historians would not have dared to write, but which I think added to the emotion of the story. I did think it was odd--bordering on irresponsible, for a historian--that Fischer stated in an epilogue that she thought Jaguar would have left Aimee if they had been together longer. This is pure speculation. Though I appreciated Fischer's honest confession of her feelings about Aimee, it might have been fairer to the reader if the author had put this at the beginning of the book. After reading the epilogue, I remembered a number of incidents in the story that portrayed Aimee in a negative light, and I couldn't help but think that Fischer's personal attitude may have colored her telling of those events. For example, when Jaguar is sent to a concentration camp, Aimee tries unsuccessfully to demand her release from the camp authorities. This action is described as "irrational", and one onlooker comments that it may have even harmed Jaguar. But no evidence for this is given--letters from Jaguar after Aimee's visit say nothing about it. Aimee's attempt might just as easily have been described as a sign of her great love for Jaguar, or of her bravery in confronting the Nazis, but instead, a picture is painted of a woman behaving irrationally, a standard sexist stereotype.
I can understand why Fischer was offended that Aimee appropriated Jaguar's Jewish background after the war. I think some of Aimee's attitude might have come from the role of German women in the time that she lived: she would have expected to take on some of the attributes and beliefs of her "husband." Plus, she was disgusted at the system that had robbed her of her lover. And her action can also be looked at in a positive way: one of Aimee's sons became very interested in the Hebrew language, and ended up emigrating to Israel. Is that a bad thing? I thought it was strange that Fischer gave so little credit to Aimee for the risks she took to try and help Jaguar and a number of other Jews. It is true that Aimee was not always on "the good side", and Fischer did some hard work investigating her background. But shouldn't people who learn and change be given some respect?
Fischer closes the book with a description of her own husband's work, which will probably make every reader feel immensely guilty. Again, not something most historians would do, but it is another sign of Fischer's brave, though not always successful, attempts to get to the heart of humanity's struggle with its own dark side. |
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| "A great book!" | 2005-11-20 |
| - Reviewed By Courtney from New York |
| It is a great book about a love affair during the war. I love how it tells about how the continued writing to eachother even when apart. This story will make you cry but is very beautiful in many ways. |
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| "Flawed real females makes compelling reading" | 2005-09-24 |
| - Reviewed By L. Hale from Illinois USA |
| I liked this book. Some of the pictures, I really wish I could blow up and have as prints in my room. The story gives a lot of insight into that era. The Amazon criticism is that the author really doesn't focus much on the lesbian aspect, instead focusing more on the era, the World War II Jewish persecution, etc. Given the setting and the individuals involved, this seems understandable. I really, really enjoyed this story. The problems and personality flaws of the women aren't glossed over either which is nice. |
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| "A facsinating book about that time" | 2004-01-27 |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
I am responding to previous reviews - I do not think this book is about romance, and I did not feel lack of personal "data".
This is an incredible documentry book that document a time (1943) and place (Berlin). Yes, it is about love story. More so, it is about the human tendency to except the current situation and ignore warning bells, the systematic Nazi optression etc. |
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