Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for gifting me a digital ARC of this wonderful debut historical fiction novel by Adriana Allegri. All opinions expressed in this review are my own – 5 stars!
Allina Strauss has a good life in her small German village. She lives with her aunt and uncle, works at a bookshop, and spends time with friends and her fiancé, Albert. But it’s 1939 and Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, when Allina’s family tells her that her birth mother was Jewish. After a night she will never forget when she loses everything she held dear, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at Hochland Home. This is a state-run baby factory and a feeder into Heinrich Himmler’s eugenics program.
This book once again shines light into such a dark part of human history, I had never heard of the Lebensborn program, where women stayed in these homes for the sole purpose of having pure babies to perpetuate the Aryan population, babies that were then adopted to Nazi families. It’s horrific to read and think about these poor babies and women, in addition to the horrors of the Holocaust itself. But this meticulously-researched book is one that you won’t be able to put down; it’s the triumph of good people in the face of evil. It’s also a love story, full of family secrets, but also hope for a better future. It’s so beautifully written and hard to believe it’s a debut novel. I was also fascinated to read the author’s notes that she started working on this book two decades ago. Lucky for all readers that she persevered; this is a must read!
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