"The Kommandant's Girl"

A book review
“the Kommandant’s Girl” by Pam Jenoff
In the early 70’s as I began my journey into the study of Psychology,
Thinking that I might become a Christan Psychologist, I remember that
one of the hot button topics was ‘situation ethics.’ What might we do in
desperate times for our own, or a family/friends survival that in normal
times we would consider unethical and/or immoral?
I think that this book centers around that question as the author introduces
us to a Polish Jewess Emma Bau. Though Emma is a fictional character
there were undoubtedly many Jews in occupied Nazi territory who faced
the same survival choices. How could she work for the very government
that was enslaving and murdering her people in concentration camps?
Didn’t the fact that she was able to supply the Resistance with information
justify her sleeping with the Nazi kommandant? Didn’t her close relationship with the commandant keep a young boy, the son of a famous
rabbi, safe? Wouldn’t her husband, Jacob, a member of the Resistance want
her to make this difficult decision to keep herself alive, so that if they
should both survive the holocaust, they could be together again?
Was it sheer coincidence that before I read this book, I had watched a
series on ‘Nazi Collaborators’ on the history channel; and that one French
collaborator justified his turning over many jews to the Nazi on the basis
that he was able to keep from fulfilling the numbers demanded by Hitler
and thus safe at least a few. Although towards the end of the war the continued discrepancy between what was demanded and what was handed
over became almost non existent, and he was finally corrupted by the need
to survive himself.
I think this book challenges us to be extra sensitive to how we view
history, and those caught up in radical circumstances, in the end to
evaluate our own daily lives …. And are there exceptions we make for
ourselves that we would condemn others for? I thoroughly enjoyed the book
and even though it has a ‘hollywoodish’ ending, it still leaves you with the
challenges and Emma Bau with an uncertain future. Oh, did I mention that
in the process Emma Bau gets pregnant – whose baby was it, the kommandant’s or Jacobs, when he had been able to sneak a couple days
visit with her at his aunt’s house where she lived??? I guess that depends
on we evaluate the book …………….. ah, hah, the author got us in the end!
JENOFF, Pam. “the Kommandant’s Girl” Ontario, Canda. MIRA Publ. 2007 ISBN: 13:978-0-7783-2342-6