Please Note:  I received an advance copy of this novel from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  This did not influence the opinions in my review in any way.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Millie Mosbach and her brother David escaped to the United States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family. Millie works in the office responsible for rooting out the most dedicated Nazis from publishing. Like most of their German-born American colleagues, the siblings suffer from rage at Germany and guilt at their own good fortune. Only Millie’s boss, Major Harry Sutton, seems strangely eager to be fair to the Germans.

Living and working in bombed-out Berlin, a latter day Wild West where the desperate prey on the unsuspecting; spies ply their trade; black markets thrive, and forbidden fraternization is rampant, Millie must come to terms with a past decision made in a moment of crisis, and with the enigmatic sometimes infuriating Major Sutton who is mysteriously understanding of her demons. Atmospheric and page-turning, The Living and the Lost is a story of survival, love, and forgiveness, of others and of self.

Review:

I think one of the things that draws me to WWII historical fiction is that there are so many different perspectives that an author can write from.  I've read WWII books about soldiers, civilians, female spies, families, the LGBTQ+ community, and more.  But, as with her previous novel, Paris Never Leaves You, author Ellen Feldman focuses on those who escaped Nazi Germany to start a new life in America.  I wasn't overly fond of Paris Never Leaves You because (to be honest) the protagonist was a German woman who pretended to be Jewish in order to immigrate to the U.S.  I found it hard to have empathy for her.

The Living and the Lost is a tale of a woman learning empathy for everyone affected by the war.   I found the characters complex and the story to be haunting.  The book did not make me feel sorry for Nazis.  But it did show the protagonist, Millie (as well as me), that no one was untouched by the war.  Some scars are obvious, while many more are psychological.  And each person shows their trauma in a different way.  As one character tells Millie, "Don't be so quick to judge others".  Clearly I need that reminder, as well.

What I liked:

Setting:

The majority of the book takes place in post-war Berlin.  Millie, a German-Jew who escaped to America in 1938, returns to her hometown to help with the rebuilding efforts.  She left Germany during the oppression of Jews, but before the war.  So she can hardly recognize the city.  Many of the buildings are destroyed, and the once proud German people are starving, fighting over anything to eat, or to sell on the black market.  But how do you figure out who are the civilians and who are the Nazis?  Who is deserving of sympathy and who should be put on trial for war crimes?

Characters:

Most of the American characters in Germany are German-born Jews who fled to the U.S. years earlier.  But all have lost family members who couldn't get out in time.  They have a lot of survivors guilt, and anger with the German people.  Each person has their own reasons for returning.  Some are looking for lost relatives, while others want revenge for what happened to their family.  Some genuinely want to reclaim Germany and show that Jews could not be eliminated.  For most, it's a mixture of each.

Millie and her brother left Germany and were hopeful that her parents and youngest sister would join them.  But they never did.  David, Millie's brother became a soldier so he could fight in the war, and kill some Nazis.  That is how he begins to deal with the guilt.  But Millie doesn't have that option.  Instead, she goes to college and, when the war is over, returns to Germany as a translator.  She is part of a team of investigators who interview Germans seeking to work in the media.  The United States doesn't want former Nazis in these highly coveted positions, so her mission is to weed them out.

Even though Millie wasn't in a concentration camp, she still is traumatized by the what lead to her leaving her family behind.  And she can't forgive herself for surviving when her parents and sister did not.  This comes out in several ways.  Even though the city has changed, Millie still has panic attacks in places like the main train station.  She looks at children and swears she sees her sister.  And she has immense anger towards Germans.

Other characters, like her brother David, and her boss Harry, feel they need to do as many good deeds as possible to justify their survival.  Other characters are so filled with rage that they will beat up Germans at the slightest provocation.  What I was really surprised about was the rage that the German civilians felt.  These people were not Nazis, but they also didn't exactly jump in to defend their Jewish neighbors either.  Nevertheless, these were people who also lost loved ones, who were terrorized by nightly bombings, who were brutally raped by Russian soldiers.  And they knew that no matter what they suffered, they were not allowed to receive sympathy.  The world was holding every German accountable for the atrocities done to the Jews.  For Millie, as well as other Jewish characters in the book, finding a way to, while perhaps not sympathize, but at least empathize with these Germans was a challenge.

Story:

The story follows Millie and her fellow German-Jews, on a path of survival, and then the guilt that follows.  Each character must face the fact they they made it through, but most of their family did not.  What a horrible feeling to lose everyone you love to war.  

With such complex characters, it was so helpful to have the many flashbacks to their different experiences getting to America, and dealing with being German (and Jewish) during the war.   At times, other Americans treated them as dirty Jews, not letting them into restaurants and hotels.  Other times, they were treated as German spies who couldn't bee trusted.  It was a no win situation.  But Millie and her brother know that no matter how hard they have it, the Jews left in Germany had it worse.

I think that is the big takeaway I had from the book.  Anyone who has been through trauma can remember that someone, somewhere else, has had worse things happen to them.  But, that doesn't mean that their suffering is any less.  People tend to compare suffering, but we shouldn't.  

Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release Date:  September 7th, 2021

Author:  Ellen Feldman

Publisher:  St. Martin's Griffin

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Page Length:  352 pages

Source:   NetGalley

Format:  E-Book

Recommendation:  A complex novel of survivorship, this is an historical fiction that you will remember for a long time.  Highly recommended.