Those Who Save Us - Jenna Blum - A Short Summary and Review
Those Who Save Us - Jenna Blum - A Short Summary and Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A short summary:
Those Who Save Us follows the strained relationship between Anna, a German-born mother living in the United States, and her American-born daughter Trudy, a history professor determined to uncover the truth about her mother’s past during World War II. When Trudy learns that Anna survived the war by aligning herself with a high-ranking Nazi officer, the revelation fractures their already fragile bond.
Through alternating timelines, the novel explores Anna’s wartime experiences in Germany alongside Trudy’s modern-day attempt to reconcile history with personal identity. As secrets surface, the story examines survival, complicity, trauma, and the lingering consequences of choices made under unimaginable pressure. The novel asks not only what happened, but how one lives afterward.
My favorite quote from the book:
Questions I pondered while reading:
My review:
This is not an easy novel to sit with.
It forces readers into uncomfortable moral terrain. Since none of us truly knows how we would behave under the threat of starvation, violence, or death, judging others from the safety of distance feels dangerously simple. Those Who Save Us confronts that instinct head-on. Anna’s wartime relationship with a Nazi officer is both disturbing and complicated, and the novel refuses to reduce her to either villain or pure victim.
At the same time, the horror of the historical setting cannot be softened. Nazi Germany represents one of the darkest chapters in modern history. The violence, anti-Semitism, and systemic cruelty are not abstract backdrops but active forces shaping every choice the characters make. It is chilling to recognize how ordinary lives were entangled in extraordinary evil.
What makes the novel powerful is its focus on the aftermath. Survival is not the end of the story; it is the beginning of reckoning. The generational divide between Anna and Trudy reflects a larger question: How do descendants process history they did not personally endure but still inherit?
The book unsettles more than it comforts. And perhaps that is necessary.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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