Shadows of Berlin is a haunting and thoughtful story of survival

David R. Gillham is an expert at writing about World War II and the Holocaust from the eyes of the Jews that survived. He did this perfectly in Annelies where he told the story of Anne Frank as if she had survived the camps, and he does so again with Shadows of Berlin.

In this book, Gillham tells the story of Rachel, a survivor of the Nazi regime. She was never sent to a concentration camp, but as a Jew in 1930s and 1940s Germany, she felt the terror of the time all the same.

Rachel and her mother were what were known as U-boats. Jews who escaped capture from the Nazis and hid out anywhere they could.

But when we meet Rachel, it’s years later and she’s living as a married woman in New York City. She’s married to Aaron Perlman, a man who spent most of the war at a military base in the U.S. and although he’s Jewish, he can never understand what she went through.

Shadows of Berlin is haunting, beautiful, and thoughtful

Despite years passing, Rachel can never forget everything she went through. She carries deep secrets and deep shame about things she did. She is even haunted by her mother’s ghost.

But her mother is not the only thing haunting her. She is also being haunted by art. She’s haunted by her inability to produce it and she’s also haunted by a painting of her mother’s that her uncle finds at a pawnshop.

To say this book punched me in the gut and had me sobbing would be an understatement. I have stopped reading Holocaust books for the past 5 years because of how emotional they make me, because of how much they don’t feel so far in the past anymore.

But since reading Annelies a few years ago, I make an exception for Gillham’s books. And I’m so glad I did for this one.

The way the story draws you in by keeping Rachel’s biggest secret hidden until the final chapters are perfect. It keeps the reader on edge and makes you wonder what exactly she’s hiding in her past.

It also helps that the story goes back and forth between Rachel’s present in New York and her past in Germany. You feel like you just might be about to learn something new and something big about Rachel’s life in Germany and then the author sends you back to the present in the next chapter.

The story also has some very thoughtful and thought-provoking moments. Rachel has a few really interesting conversations with her sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Tyrell, about being Black in America versus being a Jew in Germany. I think she views him as safe or at least an outsider like her and so ends up spilling all her secrets to him (for better or for worse).

There is also an overarching theme of survival and what people will do in order to survive throughout the book. No spoilers, but let’s just say Rachel’s past actions are nothing when compared to someone else’s behavior in the book.

I also loved how much art played a role in the story. Rachel’s mother was an artist and it is her mother’s painting that comes back to haunt her in the U.S.

Rachel also has a love for art although she tries to keep it at arm’s length. But as much as she tries to push it away, Rachel does end up creating a painting and it turns out to be the thing that gives her some peace.

Jewishness, of course, played a role in the story as well and it felt like a warm hug to me. The Yiddish used in the dialogue, the interactions between Rachel, Aaron, and his family, and the moments with Rachel and her uncle. it’s everywhere. And I’m not sure anyone besides another Jew will notice all the small moments but there are several scenes that could have come from my own family.

If you’re looking for a deep, well-written, thoughtful story about survival and ways people find themselves again after they’ve survived, I highly recommend Shadows of Berlin. But make sure to have some tissues nearby. You’ll need them.

Shadows of Berlin is now available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.