Girl in a Smart Uniform by Gill James

 

 

Gisela adores her brother Bear, her gorgeous BDM uniform and her little half-brother Jens. She does her best to be a good German citizen and is keen to help restore Germany to its former glory. She becomes a competent and respected BDM leader.

But life begins to turn sour. Her oldest brother Kurt can be violent, she soon realises that she is different from other girls, she feels uncomfortable around her mother’s new lover and there is something not quite right about Jens.  It becomes more and more difficult to be the perfect German young woman.          

Girl in a Smart Uniform is the third book in the Schellberg Cycle, a collection of novels inspired by a bunch of photocopied letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979.

The letters give us some insights into what life was like growing up in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

This novel explores what may have motivated young women growing up in Nazi Germany and offers an explanation as to how a school for disabled children was allowed to carry on functioning throughout World War II.    

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I very much enjoyed this novel. It is fairly straight forward to find stories about war written from a male perspective, not so easy to find one that not only has a young woman as the main protagonist but Gisela is also a committed member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) the female equivalent of Hitler Youth in World War 2. She is so proud of her uniform and her opportunity to serve Germany and right the wrongs she perceives as having been foisted on her country. The reader follows her journey through adolescence and into womanhood, as she comes to terms with love, loss, identity and the discovery of the fickle nature of trust and truth.

            The short diary style chapters allow the reader to become engrossed in a narrative that switches between time, place and narrator. This technique works well; I could put the book down, pick it up a few days later and carry on with the story. As with all good stories, the reader is left with a few questions about some of the characters. This book is part three of a series of four book, The Schellberg Cycle, and I now want to read the others. That said this is a complete and satisfying read. It ends on a note of hope and possibility as Europe struggles into peace in the late 1940s.

            This is a terrific book that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Book club guide 

 

 

Face to Face with the Führer

 

Käthe wants to be a scientist. She sees herself as more than a housewife and a mother. And she is in her own eyes definitely not Jewish.

Life in Nazi Germany sees it another way however. She has to give up a promising career and her national identity. She has to leave the home she has built up for her husband and daughter. But she is not afraid of challenges. She enlists the help of a respected professor to help her fulfil her ambition, she learns how to use a gun and how to drive a car. But what will she do when she finds herself fact to face with the Führer or, indeed, with the challenges of modern life?

Face to Face with the Führer is the fourth novel in Gill James’ Schellberg cycle.

 

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Clara's Story

 

Clara will not be daunted. Her life will not end when her beloved husband dies too young.  She will become a second mother to the young children who live away from home in order to visit a rather special school. When life becomes desperate for a particular class of disabled children growing up in Nazi Germany she takes a few risks. Is her ultimate faith in the goodness of human beings a fatal flaw that leads to her tragedy, or is her story actually one of hope?

RRP £10.00

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The social history starting before World War 1 and continuing to the present day, was extremely interesting and Clara herself had the attitude that where there’s hope there’s life. A well-written and thought-provoking book.  

I was drawn to the illustration on the book cover and wanted to know more about Clara. All the characters are so well described, I found they stayed with me long after I’d finished the book. Clara’s positive attitude shines through and can teach us much. A book about the Holocaust that is both interesting and yet has a light touch. It may not be a “whodunnit “, but is certainly a page turner.

 

The second book in the Schellberg Cycle showing what it was like to grown up in the 1930s and 40s in Germany.

Inspired by letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979, when a woman began to recognise the names of the girls she had been to school with.
It's the story of a school for disabled children that defied the Nazi regime.

This is a book that schools should stock and that should definitely be more widely known and it's stories like these that keep people alive and make us think.

Written with a strong voice.
Highly recommended. 

ISBN: 9781910542330