Two brothers

This book had been on my Amazon wishlist for ages, I kept saying I'd buy and read it but am not ashamed to say I was waiting for an optimum price. Eventually I secured it and having waited so long I delved straight in. During my many years at school I have to admit to having been somewhat underwhelmed by all the lessons about the Second World War, all the teaching of the politics of it all never made it jump off the page for me. As I have matured however I've found it becoming more real to me as I've read fictional and real accounts of the every day people who lived through the war.

Starting in 1920's Berlin with a young Jewish trainee doctor Freida and her jazz musician husband Wolfgang we follow their journey to hospital where Freida gives birth to their twin boys, one however is sadly stillborn. A doctor mentions that another baby has just been born in the hospital, an orphan whose mother died in childbirth and father was killed as a communist. Freida agrees to the adoption of the child and she takes both boys home, telling no one that one of her boys was not the twins she carried, only adoption papers at the hospital bearing witness.

On the same day the twins are born the German Nationalist Socialist Party is formed, that which we know as the Nazi regime begins. The book follows the twins childhood in Berlin, raised as Jewish boys they have a secure childhood until 1932 when the madness of Nazi anti semitism begins, bit by bit growing its isolation of Jews and the German hatred for them. Thrust into a world where they are ostracised and sidelined for their faith they are inseparable the only thing between them their love for a Jewish girl Dagmar.

This book was so engaging that I struggled to pull myself away from it, it is so atmospheric that in reading it you are fully immersed into the world of Germany in the 20's and 30's. The book is stated as being about the twins Otto and Paulus, but it was so much more than that its the story of their parents and grandparents, their friends and their families also. How life was changed for rich and poor and how your blood became the tender knife edge on which fate was balanced.

There's a love story intertwined amongst it, the twins love for Jewish heiress to Fischer's department store Dagmar, her manipulation of both boys affections initially and laterally her utter dependence upon them to help her survive. Ultimately though this book is one about survival and the lengths we will go to to do just that when we have no other options available to us. Whom would we lie to, who would we protect and how long lasting will the damage be?

It was an absolute joy to read this book, it was an outstandingly crafted story and absolutely one I immersed myself in. I feel a little bereft now I've finished it, restless and unsure of what to read next, sure it won't measure up to this.