The Women in the Castle

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Not another novel set during World War II - that was my first thought when I picked up 'The Women in the Castle'. That being said, as cliched as it may sound, this novel is a bit different from most WWII novels. The author writes about an unusual subject - the widows of the resisters who tried and failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thus end the atrocities of the Nazis during the war. So, yes, this is not just another World War II novel - but does it live up to the intriguing premise?

The novel opens with a glittering party at Burg Lingenfels - the titular 'Castle'. Despite the dark clouds of war gathering over Nazi Germany, the hostess, Marianne von Lingenfels, is determined that her guests should enjoy the night - but ominous news from Berlin brings the festivities to an abrupt end. It is November, 9, 1938 - a date that will infamously go down in history as Kristallnacht. A date that marks the beginning of the end of the privileged life that Marianne knows. A date that the plot to remove Hitler takes root at the Burg - amongst the conspirators are Marianne's husband, Albrecht and her childhood friend, Connie.

7 years later, the war has ended - "Connie was dead, Albrecht was dead, Germany itself was dead, and half the people at the party were either killed, destroyed by shame, or somewhere between the two" - Marianne returns to the ruins of Burg Lingenfels, along with her children. She has a promise to uphold - a promise she made on the fateful night of the party to protect the families of the resisters - and in the aftermath of the war, her tireless search to gather up the surviving widows and children begins. She first locates Connie's son, Martin, in a Nazi 'reeducation' home. Together they travel across a ravaged Germany to Berlin, where they rescue Martin's mother, Benita, from the clutches of a Red Army colonel. And then Marianne finds Ania Grabarek and her sons, refugees in a 'Displaced Persons' camp.

Putting to use her indefatigable energy and formidable organization skills, Marianne gathers these widows and children to her, hoping that shared experiences and losses will bond them into a makeshift family. A born leader, Marianne takes to her heart the title of 'Commander of women and children', but to her surprise, she discovers that not all those she has rescued wish to follow her. Her black-and-white approach to good and bad will not serve her well in this gray, post-war world - and she is unable to accept that the other widows might not view their martyred husbands with the same reverence and loyalty as she does. Benita's attempt at finding love with a reluctant ex-Nazi and Ania's deepest, darkest secrets soon threaten the fragile ties of friendship between the women...

This is certainly not a classic World War II novel in any sense. But in setting out on a different path, I felt that the author missed out on bringing to the reader the horrors of the war. Even the plot to kill Hitler is not elaborated upon. Marianne's quest, is far too easy - there is no sense of struggle or desperation. She sets out to find her widows and does find them with the insouciance of someone putting together a guest list for a tea party. In the devastation that is Germany after the war, Marianne and her 'family' have food, water and shelter. Their biggest challenge is when some starving Russian troops commandeer a horse to eat - and even that horse belongs to a neighboring farmer, who also conveniently happens to have another horse to work the fields - so the hardship never fully comes across.

Marianne's past is never fully explained - I really wanted to know why she never married Connie (she clearly carries a torch for him even after he's dead), where does she meet Albrecht, why does she marry him? We never scratched the surface - always cool and composed, what does Marianne really feel? And honestly, her righteousness - insisting on her children looking at the posters of the concentration camps, sharing their presents with prisoners - it does get to be a little annoying. How can a person go through a war and deprivation, and not change at all?? Benita's character serves as little more than a foil to Marianne's - her past is better sketched, but I never really did get why a man like Connie would marry such a naive villager - I wish she had shown more spirit, especially when it came to her son.

Ania's is the strongest character arc. Through her story, we get a sense of how an entire nation could know but not know the depravities committed by the Nazis. Her reaction at a Winter Help store where she notices that the warm coats she is getting for her boys have been 'redistributed' from deportees who have been forced to leave their belongings behind is the most chilling point in the story - "this confirms what the Fuhrer has been saying - the Jews of Germany have made themselves unreasonably rich. Who would leave behind such a coat unless they owned an even better one they could bring along?" - an entire nation hoodwinked by one man's rhetoric. Even with Ania, her big secret and its denouement comes with a whimper - there is no big conflict of emotions, betrayals, no climatic showdown.

Yes, the premise is intriguing - but the novel falls a little short of my expectations. Read it, and then watch Tom Cruise's Valkyrie - that should put the book in a better perspective!! Happy Reading!!