*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: The Midwife of Berlin
Author: Anna Stuart
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★★★★
Auschwitz, 1943: I stroke my beautiful baby’s hair.
It’s a miracle it’s blonde because it will keep her alive, it will keep her
safe. Soon they will come and take Pippa out of Auschwitz-Birkenau – and out of
my arms. But while there’s life, there’s hope I might find my daughter again…
An incredible story of one woman’s courage and
determination to reunite her family in the aftermath of surviving Auschwitz.
1945, Berlin: Ester Pasternak walked
out of the gates of Auschwitz barely alive. She survived against devastating
odds, but her heartbreaking journey is only just beginning. In the camp, Ester
gave birth to a tiny fair-haired infant, only for her precious baby to be
snatched from her and taken to a German family. Now the war is over, Ester
longs to find her little girl.
But Europe is in chaos, Jewish families have been torn
apart and everyone is desperately searching for their loved ones. In every
orphanage and hospital she visits, Ester searches the faces of tear-stained
toddlers; each mop of blonde hair and pair of blue eyes she sees sets her heart
racing…
But as the months and the years tick by, the possibility
of finding her daughter shrinks smaller and smaller. And Ester starts to wonder
if little Pippa is even safe, or whether the miracle that saved her has now put
her in even more danger?
Will Ester ever be able to find the child whose tattoo matches her own? Or is she already too late…
The Midwife Of Berlin is the latest powerful page-turning novel
from historical fiction author Anna Stuart. It’s a heartbreaking story primarily
set in 1961 Berlin, the year the Berlin Wall was constructed, with occasional
flashbacks to Auschwitz in 1943 and Berlin in 1950. Anna Stuart’s engaging writing
style made the setting come alive on the page and I was utterly hooked from prologue
to epilogue.
I did start reading the book without realising it was the sequel
to The Midwife of Auschwitz, a book which has been on my TBR list for a
while. But I was surprised with how well easy the story was to follow despite
this, and this is credit to Anna Stuart’s incredible writing ability, so I continued
reading and I would say that the book does largely work as a standalone story.
It has made me excited to read The Midwife of Auschwitz though to gain a
more in-depth understanding of Ester’s wartime story.
Something which stood out from even the early chapters of The
Midwife of Berlin was how clearly meticulously researched the history was and
how history was just seamlessly woven into the story. With every historical
fiction novel I read I start a list of interesting historical events and ideas featured
in the story which I would like to research and educate myself further on. And
there was so much packed into this one book that my list became quite extensive.
Alongside the primary focus on Holocaust-survivors trying to reunite with the children
who had been taken from them and adopted into Nazi Germany, the books provided
an interesting insight into life on either side of the wall. Through Olivia’s
story we get an insight into the decades-long athlete doping programme that
existed in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and it was fascinating
to read this from the perspective of one of the athletes themselves. Another really
interesting aspect of the story was the exploration of East German/socialist
attitudes to sex and relationships being more relaxed than in traditional Western
relationships.
I really appreciated the choice of when to set the story as
it meant that we were able to explore life in both East and West Berlin before
the construction of the wall, on the day it went up, in the months and years
following the construction and also in the aftermath of the fall of the wall.
Typically fiction books I’ve read surrounding the Berlin Wall have been set at
some point during the 28 years the wall stood so to get the full breadth of the
wall’s history from a single story was fantastic. The history-geek in me
particularly loved the use of dates are the beginning of each chapter which
allowed us to track the build up to the construction of the Berlin Wall.
The Midwife of Berlin has an ensemble of wonderful characters
who were all written with such depth to their characters. Olivia and Kirsten
were both fantastically written realistic teenagers and it was fantastic to see
their character development throughout the novel from naïve teenagers to mature
self-aware young women. Their romantic relationships with their respective
partners were also wonderfully written and I also loved the strong sibling bond
between Olivia and her brother Uli that withstands the revelations in the
story. Although the majority of the characters are fictional, we also had a
powerful portrayal of the heroic actions of Dieter Wohlfahrt, a real person who
worked with other students to get people out of East Berlin.
This is a hard-hitting story with potentially triggering
content including rape and women forced to give their children up for adoption.
I have provided a full list of content warnings at the beginning of this
review. Although these topics are hard-hitting, I found them all to be explored
in powerful ways which did justice to the real European women who experienced
these horrific acts in the 1940s and the lifelong trauma they experienced as a
result.
Overall, The Midwife Of Berlin is a really powerful piece of
historical fiction and has been one of my standout historical
fiction books of 2023. It is a story I will truly never forget and
one I’ve been recommending to anyone who will listen.
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