The Kommandant’s Girl – Pam Jenoff
The story is set in Poland near the beginning of the war. Emma, a young Jewish girl, newly married, finds her life thrown into turmoil when her husband, Jacob, disappears to join the Resistance soon after the Nazis invade. Returning to her parent’s, she discovers that they and her entire community have been rounded up and put into the Ghetto. In despair, she goes to join them, wondering whether she will ever see Jacob again.
In the Ghetto she soon makes contact with more members of the Resistance who manage to get her out. As she is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she begins to lead a double life as a Catholic girl from Gdansk, staying with Jacob’s Catholic aunt and a little boy who has also been rescued from the Ghetto. However, soon after the beginning of her dangerous double-life, the Kommandant of the town comes to the house she is living in for dinner. He is immediately taken by her and asks her to come and work for him. A romance ensues and Emma, now called Anna, finds herself torn between her love for her husband and her work for the Resistance, and her growing affection for the Nazi.
The story sounds good. Unfortunately the execution of it wasn’t as good. For some reason, I simply didn’t find the characters believable. Emma/Anna was so naive that I wanted to smack her at times. I honestly couldn’t believe that someone in such a situation could be so careless. For instance, she starts work at the Kommandant’s office and the minute she walks in, she is given instructions to open the mail, but to NOT open anything marked Confidential. Within minutes she is thinking ‘this is marked confidential. It might have something in it I can give to the Resistance. Let’s open it’. Sure enough, in walks the Kommandant and his aide just as she is doing it. Honestly, wouldn’t you at least wait until you knew his movements and knew whether it was safe to take such a risk? Clearly not. Similarly, her endless ‘moral battles’ with herself coupled with her apparent lack of regard for caution as she blurts out demands to know about her husband in public places started to get on my nerves. OK, she might have been naive. But under circumstances like that, knowing that your life, the lives of the people you are talking to and the lives of people you love are at stake, wouldn’t you try to exercise a little more discretion?
I found the growing romance between her and the Kommandant slightly odd. Love at first sight, perhaps, but it did seem a little false to me. And the finale was also odd. The kind of back and forth about the feelings of both of the main characters just didn’t ring true to me. It’s not that I thought it couldn’t happen like that. It was more that it felt like it had all been written in for dramatic effect and as a result, the lead characters became like the kind of cariacatures that you get when you read Mills & Boon novels. I have to say I was disappointed. I had expected a lot more from this book and it just didn’t seem to deliver.
Rating: 6/10
ISBN: 978-1-741-16500-5
Publisher: Mira Books
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 17 December 2008
Pages: 395
