The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

Over the last few years we have been given the wonderful gift of great books about WWII driven by female heroines. We met strong women who fought against they evil they faced in the dark world and who enlightened us and inspired us to believer we too could be more than we ever thought possible  Jessica Shattuck tells a female driven story of WWII with a much different perspective.  He novel, The Women in the Castle, is historical fiction but it is grounded in truth.  Shattuck researched her book for seven years, but it really was a  lifetime in the making.  One of her three main female characters, Ania, is based on Shattuck's grandmother who was in reality a Nazi, a true believer in Hitler's youth movement and propaganda.  The other two women who we follow are reflective of "real" Germans also.  Marianne is the owner of the castle and is the strong moral backbone of the resistance population in Gernany and Benita is the poor but beautiful farm girl who just wants to escape her dreadful reality which traps her in a life of poverty.  Over the years, Shattuck realized that the Germans she knew were not able to or willing to answer such basic questions as, "Did you not know what was happening? or Were you not seeing what Hitler was doing?"  Using these three characters with totally different connections to the Nazi regime, we are given a realistic portrayal of what German people really saw and accepted and why they reacted as they did.  This book does not in any way excuse the horrific acts of Hitler and his followers, but it does give a viable explanation of the actions of the everyday Germans.  When we ask ourselves "How could they do that?" Shattuck seems to say "Walk in their shoes before you judge."  This was a really eye opening book.  The storyline was interesting and complicated but truly enlightening.