the women in the castle by jessica shattuck

Germany, 1945: in this devastated landscape where “no one was innocent,” there is misery for all and plenty to spare. The lens through which we see the Holocaust and World War II is so often the very important lens of the victims' perspective and the perspective of the Allies and the liberators - but then, I feel like now that that has become part of our canon, we can also step back and start thinking how, and starting to look at the German experience, the experience of the complicit and the enablers.Three German “widow of the resistance,” who spend time together at a run-down castle when World War II ends, embody aspects of the catastrophe that overcame their country.

What I felt was really relevant when I was writing this book was the question of, what did ordinary Germans - the people whose lives sort of touched very peripherally on the darkness - experience during that time, and how did they let this happen? How did they either not see it, or blind themselves to it? It felt to me like those questions are becoming more and more pertinent in America, and there was very little written about them as I started to investigate what other books were out there. experience during that time, and how did they let this happen? What I felt was really relevant when I was writing this book was the question of, what did ordinary Germans. I loved going there and I loved my grandparents, but I also knew there was a very dark history, and I felt very conflicted about that.'

'My mother was German, so I grew up going to visit my grandparents in the summers, and I also grew up with a very strong sense of shame about being half German. Shattuck says the story has its roots in her childhood. But the support they give one another is tinged with regrets and guilt about their different pasts, and set against a deprivation for which the world has little sympathy. Marianne von Lingenfels has promised those who conspired with her husband that she would find and protect their families. The women are war widows - war resistance widows, really - whose husbands paid with their lives for the July 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler. The Women in the Castle, the new novel by Jessica Shattuck, tells the story of three women, and their children, who take refuge in the ruins of a Bavarian castle at the end of World War II. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Women in the Castle Author Jessica Shattuck

The women in the castle by jessica shattuck