Non­fic­tion

The Nazi Offi­cer’s Wife: How One Jew­ish Woman Sur­vived the Holocaust

Edith Hahn Beer with Susan Dworkin

  • Review
By – June 3, 2015

The sto­ry of a beau­ti­ful young Jew­ish law stu­dent who did not try to escape Aus­tria because she would not leave her wid­owed moth­er or her half-Jew­ish class­mate, Pepi, with whom she had fall­en in love. Togeth­er, they share the shock of watch­ing Hitler devour the coun­tries of East­ern Europe with­out a shot and soon annex their own Vien­na, upon which most of the gen­tile cit­i­zens are deliri­ous with joy and vicious­ly begin to attack their for­mer Jew­ish neigh­bors and classmates.

Like oth­er Aus­tri­an Jews, Edith Hahn, a bril­liant stu­dent, had tak­en her country’s anti-Semi­tism in stride. She loved Vienna’s beau­ty and cul­ture. Despite the under­ly­ing anti-Semi­tism of many in the Chris­t­ian pop­u­la­tion, Jews could prac­tice their pro­fes­sions, own busi­ness­es, have Chris­t­ian friends and inter­mar­ry with Chris­tians. Some of the bright­est stu­dents had become social­ists, how­ev­er; many of which dreamed of one day going to Pales­tine. Was it too late, now that the Ger­mans had marched in to the cheers of Vienna’s cit­i­zens? As con­di­tions wors­en, more Jews try to escape but many, unwill­ing to leave their elder­ly rel­a­tives, remained. Among those who tar­ried too long was Edith Hahn Beer, whose mis­chling boyfriend’s Chris­t­ian moth­er didn’t want him to leave, not even after Kristall­nacht, the pogrom against the Jews when their Jew­ish friends were beat­en and one after the oth­er dragged away to Dachau or oth­er camps. Edith and her moth­er are dis­pos­sessed from one lodg­ing after anoth­er. Final­ly, Edith is called up for slave labor and begins on her long jour­ney of exhaust­ing work­ing and near­ly starv­ing in a series of slave labor camps, until – on her way to a con­cen­tra­tion camp, she escapes from the train.

With a brave and gen­er­ous friend’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments, Edith, assumes her gen­tile friend’s iden­ti­ty and becomes a sub­ma­rine,” one of those Jews who hide in plain sight in a land that will mur­der them if they are dis­cov­ered. When an oppor­tu­ni­ty to live as the wife of a Ger­man sol­dier (and artist) aris­es under unusu­al con­di­tions, she final­ly accepts his pro­pos­al, lives the lie, and sur­vives. Edith nev­er sur­ren­ders her true self, how­ev­er, only buries it for a while.

A twelve-page sup­ple­ment to the auto­bi­og­ra­phy pro­vides a long obit­u­ary for Edith Hahn Beer, a rec­ol­lec­tion of the author by her loved ones, and a read­ing group guide. This edi­tion of the Edith Hahn Beer’s orig­i­nal book is iden­ti­cal to the orig­i­nal, and has no doubt been pub­lished to accom­pa­ny the forth­com­ing film. Read the book first; a film sel­dom includes everything.

Mar­cia W. Pos­ner, Ph.D., of the Holo­caust Memo­r­i­al and Tol­er­ance Cen­ter of Nas­sau Coun­ty, is the library and pro­gram direc­tor. An author and play­wright her­self, she loves review­ing for JBW and read­ing all the oth­er reviews and arti­cles in this mar­velous periodical.

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