Review by Booklist Review
Allina bristles when friends turn against Jewish neighbors in 1938 Germany, but the aunt and uncle who raised her warn her to stay quiet, until they finally reveal that her mother was Jewish. Forged documents are all that save her when Nazis assault her and destroy her town. She is transported to a Lebensborn home--housing for women who bear children for the Reich and home to Himmler's eugenics program. After recovering physically, Allina must tend to the children while desperately keeping her real identity secret. When she can't hold in her heartbreak any longer, she attracts the notice of Karl, an SS officer who seems sympathetic. As their paths continue to cross, she realizes that he has secrets of his own. Together they find ways to help the few children they can while also finding solace in each other. This bittersweet debut unfolds through multiple time lines and perspectives--Allina, Karl, and Allina's adult daughter, who hadn't known of her family's fraught past. It is a testament to hope against hopelessness, sacrifice for even the smallest of victories, and the strength it takes to love in truly dangerous times.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Allegri's stirring debut, a secretly Jewish woman works at a Nazi maternity home during WWII. In a frame narrative set in 2006, Katrine, the daughter of 86-year-old Allina, discovers a swastika-adorned box in her mother's closet in New Jersey, and unexpectedly learns the truth of Allina's past. As a girl in 1920s Germany, Allina was happily raised by her aunt Claudia and uncle Dieter in the tiny town of Badensburg. In 1939, shortly before his death from cancer, Dieter tells Allina her birth mother was Jewish. She keeps the news a secret, but still does not escape abuse from the Nazis. When they raze her village for reasons that come out later, she's abducted and raped by a German soldier, who then forces her to work as a nurse at a Nazi Lebensborn home, or "baby factory," where women give birth to Aryan babies. There, Allina falls for SS officer Karl von Strassberg, who's covertly working for a resistance group. After their marriage and the birth of their daughter Katrine, Karl and Allina struggle to survive the war as he continues his dangerous resistance activities--leading them to make a fateful decision that Katrine eventually discovers. Allegri keenly depicts her characters' moral calculations, and she convincingly portrays the horrors of the Lebensborn program. This will stay with readers. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Katrine knew absolutely nothing about her mother Allina's life prior to her immigrating to the United States after World War II. Then one day, while straightening up her mother's bedroom, Katrine discovers a wooden box hidden in the floor. Inside the box are the secrets Allina has kept about her life in Germany; secrets she is now willing to share with her daughter. The notorious Lebensborn program schemed up by Nazi Germany becomes the focal point of Allegri's deftly written debut, as one woman tries not just to survive but also do her own small part to help others in a world gone mad. Allegri doesn't shy away from detailing the brutalities committed by Nazis and the lengths to which they would go to create a master race. But carefully threaded throughout this gripping story is a message of hope and resilience. VERDICT With empathy and insight, Allegri crafts a vividly realized historical novel that not only illuminates one of history's saddest times but also illustrates the power of compassion and kindness to drive away the dark.--John Charles
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A woman uncovers her mother's past in an understudied chapter of World War II history. After her 86-year-old mother falls off a step stool in her closet, Katrine finds a hidden box with a swastika on the lid--a symbol of hate that turns out to contain the remnants of her mother's love story. In a single day, her mother, Allina, shares the story of her childhood in Germany and journey to America, a story she'd never told Katrine before, changing the course of their relationship. Allina grew up in Badensburg, raised by her aunt and uncle and betrothed to her childhood sweetheart. Badensburg is an idyllic 150-person village, defined by lake views and strudel until the fall of 1938. That's when Allina wakes to gunfire one day and flees Badensburg, carrying little but the forged papers that conceal her half-Jewish identity. The next day, she finds herself at a building that's part of Heinrich Himmler's eugenics program, Lebensborn--a "baby factory" devoted to providing children to "pure" German families. The inhabitants are told that "every mother of good blood is a sacred asset of our existence," especially considering how many lives were lost during the war. Allina has never been good at concealing her thoughts, no matter how heretical, so SS officer Karl von Strassberg needs only a glimpse of her face to know she isn't like the other German women in the program. Karl recruits Allina for a secret project to rescue the Lebensborn children, at great personal risk. As Germany's power grows, Allina and Karl reveal themselves to one another, their alliance gaining momentum alongside its inevitable historical context. Allegri raises questions about duty, morality, circumstance, and sacrifice. Embodying those dilemmas are Allina, the resilient woman who refuses to become a victim, and Karl, the villain with a heart of gold. Although these old tropes do ring familiar, Allegri imbues her characters with a depth of feeling that's alive and entirely its own. A bright emergency flare of a story sent up from history's darkness. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
