“The Keeper of Hidden Books” - Madeline Martin

 

📚WW II-era historical fiction is among a favorite of mine. Many of the well known novels written about this time period seem to focus either on London during the Blitz, or France under occupation. TKHB tells us about life in Poland - beginning in 1939 Warsaw when war prep was underway although no one believed war would come to their city, and then through the N*zi occupation. Martin makes a point of noting that even upon liberation from the N*zis, the Polish people were next occupied by another force: the Soviets.

📚We first meet Zofia, determinedly reading Helen Keller’s autobiography as it is on Hitler’s list of banned books. This becomes a touchstone act of rebellion in TKHB. Martin details the insidiousness of the banned books orders coming as they did on the heels on the Intelligenzaktion campaign.

📚 Martin captures the constant fear and deadly uncertainty of life under German occupation in Warsaw. To live, to go about the mundane, while German soldiers chip away at Polish national identity, regularly witnessing the persecution of former neighbors simply for being Jewish, the constant figurative bombardment of a disinformation campaign to turn neighbors against each other, was a different sort of trauma from the preoccupation fears of literal bombs. Martin gives life to this hellish limbo in which Polish citizens lived.

📚I think TKHB is a companion to Martin’s “Last Bookshop in London” which takes up the tale from the British POV during the Blitz.