Author: Louise Fein
ISBN: 9781789545005
Publisher: Head of Zeus
People Like Us also titled Daughter of the Reich is a beautiful, heart wrenching love story written by Louise Fein.
Set in Leipzig, Germany 1930’s pre-World War II, Hetty Heinrich is a young girl living with her father Franz, a high ranked SS officer, mother Helene and older brother Karl who is in the German Air Force and a member of the BDM. Hetty is heavily influenced by her family; being young Hitler wanted to create a generation of young Aryans who were physically fit and totally obedient through programmes such as Hitler Youth in which her family supported. Hitler believed the German race to be the superior race, and people could be separated into a hierarchy of different races, where some races were superior and others were inferior. He believed he was god-like, and Jews were filthy pigs, which made it hard for Hetty as her brother’s best friend Walter Keller is a Jew. When Hetty was eight Walter saved her from drowning and she formed a crush on him. Over time they lost touch and Karl turned his back on Walter for being a Jew.
Years later Hetty is reunited with Walter and they fall in love. Under the Nuremberg Laws it is prohibited for them dating or marrying, they keep their relationship a secret from all. Time spent with Walter who encourages her to see the discrimination and prosecution of Jews, Hetty begins to question her upbringing and all that she was taught to believe and stood by.
Her family firmly believes she should marry a German but as Hetty falls deeper in love with Walter she realises she must sacrifice herself and her life by fighting against her family, brother and the Hitler ruling. Anyone against Hitler was either sent to prison or executed. Hitler wanted to take all actions necessary in order to make Germany prosper, and with Jews being sent to concentration camps and complete annihilation of the Jewish population Hetty is faced with the ultimate decision to try and save Walter at all costs.
If you enjoyed reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz you will definitely love this book filled with history, loss, secrets, heartbreak, loyalty, suffering, and sacrifice and most importantly love.
Thank you Beauty & Lace and Head of Zeus for read and review.
A selection of our members have been reading this book with us. You can find out what they thought below, or add your own review!
My love of books started at a very young age. My mum has always been a reader and encouraged me to read, buying me endless book from classic fairy tales advancing to the world of Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Kathryn Kenny, Carolyn Keene, Francine Pascal. In my adult years the list of authors is endless and every room in my house is filled with books.
One of my favourite novels is Narnia which has always has a special place in my heart. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 1978 and when I was given this book to read it let me escape to another world where I felt like I was in the book with all the characters, it wasfun and exciting to escape from reality and eased the ups and downs of the disease at such a young age.
In books nothing is impossible and there is endless potential and hundreds of places to explore or being taken to places that are only made up from the authors’ great minds, the past and future to navigate, characters lives you step into taking you on an emotional rollercoaster ride or being scared out of your wits. I can experience things that I can’t in real life because they’re not possible or real. It challenges my perspective and mindset expanding my worldview.
I find joy, comfort and peace with books, many people may not get it, but I know bookworms like me truly understand. Reading makes my heart happy.
I have read a lot of books lately set in WWII and this is another very different take on a book set in that era.
Hetty is the daughter of a high ranking SS officer and has been brainwashed by all of the Nazi propaganda that was put out at that time.
But Hetty is also in love with her brother’s childhood best friend, Walter who happens to be Jewish.
Hetty must make some hard decisions on whether to follow Hitler and her families beliefs or to go against it all and risk her own safety trying to protect Walter.
This is a great read that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Beauty and Lace and Head of Zeus for the opportunity to read this book.
Thank you to Beauty and Lace and Head if Zeus publishing for the opportunity to read People Like us by Louise Fein.
Louise Fein has drawn on her own family story to write this amazing book. Most Holocaust stories are told from the Jewish perspective…….but this story is cleverly told by a German girl which throws a wonderful twist on the presentation of historical events.
We meet Hetty in 1929, she is 7. Her brother Karl’s friend Walter saves Hetty from drowning. Naturally Hetty’s family are grateful to Walter. She and her brother have a range of friends, she goes to a good school and dreams of becoming a Dr. Hetty doesn’t question the events around her.
In 1933 She realises her father has power, he write Editorial for the Leipziger Paper and is in the SS. A news paper is a powerful weapon to further Hitler’s course.
A good German girl never questions or complains, her duty is to serve the Fuhrer. She loves her Mum and Dad and takes on their views with out question.
Hetty and Walter’s paths cross again. Walter is Jewish. Her Mother tells her ….you can only mix with people like us.
Hetty is headstrong and as she grows older and witnesses events, she questions the blindness in which every one is following Hittler. On her rebellious outings we see the Germany of that time.
This story is a love story culminating many years after the war in London.
Louise Fein says…..and above all that I want to show that the lessons of the past must never be forgotten.
That is achieved in this wonderful story, a great read.
People like us is set in Germany through the period 1929 to 1939 as Adolf Hitler cements his place as leader of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (commonly known as the Nazi Party). Fein has chosen to write the story from the perspective of a child raised in a fervent Nazi Party household and the story is a fascinating, yet harrowing, mix of childhood innocence, the impact of propaganda, and the confusion between what you are taught to be truth and what you experience as truth.
The tale begins in Leipzig in 1929; Herta Heinrich (Hetty) aged seven, is watching her older brother Karl and his best friend Walter Keller swimming in the lake when she topples from the end of the jetty and falls in. Not knowing how to swim she is in danger of drowning until Walter rescues her. This moment in time sears into Hetty’s brain that Walter is her hero, as her mother gratefully thanks Walter for being such a brave strong swimmer and saving Hetty’s life. That night to make her feel better, Karl givers her an early birthday present, a journal and fountain pen, for her to write and save all her secrets in.
1933, brings many changes to Hetty’s life, now 11 she commenced at her new school in August, having scored well in the entrance examination. On the first day her teacher is chastised by the headmaster for teaching from book that was not written by a German. Later that day she takes her friend from her old school, Tomas, to see her new house. Her father is rising through the ranks of the Nazi party and has been issued a new home, the best home on the street, complete with all the furniture and artworks the previous owners left behind. With a child’s innocence she greets the elderly couple from across the street and asks if she may pat their dog, Flocke, then is horrified and confused as the elderly lady accuses her father of having had the previous occupants of her house forced out with lies and trumped up charges. When she questions her mother, she is told not to talk to the couple, they tell lies, they are Jews.
February 1934, her brother Karl, now 15 is inducted into the Hitler Jugend, Hitler attends the ceremony and his speech impassions Hetty, Hitler has spoken to her, she is special, Hitler knows that she has a great part to play in this New Reich. That night in her journal she writes :My Hitler, I devote my life to you. Make your plan for me clear, because from now on, everything I do, it is for you and you alone. I will make you proud that I’m your child. Oh great, great Führer …” Later that night she is awakened and observes her father kiss his secretary through the window. When she tells Karl the next day he laughs and dismisses what she has seen as a bad dream, but then confuses her by refusing to see Walter when he comes to visit.
April 1934, Hetty is horrified when he friend Tomas tells her that his father who has lost his job does not want to work for the Reich. She encourages him to provide information about his father’s communist tendencies and friends to her father. After doing so Tomas expresses concern that his father will be arrested, but Herr Heinrich assures him he won’t be, he’ll just be taken into protective custody for his own safety. As a reward for his bravery, Heinrich enables Tomas to become a standard bearer in the Jungvolk, which until now his parents have not let him join.
September 1934, many of the teachers at Hetty’s school have been replaced with more “acceptable” teachers. Her new teacher begins with a lesson on Eugenics. To demonstrate his point he calls Freda Federmann, Jewess, to the front of the class as well as Walter. He then proceeds to use a set of callipers to point out all of Freda’s faults that prove she is inferior to the Aryan ideal. Hetty feels uncomfortable for Freda, but assumes that Walter with his blonde hair, blue eyes and good looks is there to demonstrate the clear superiority of the Aryan in the Eugenics hierarchy. As the realisation that Walter is not being held up as the ideal, but as a Jew, Hetty’s world comes crashing down. How can this boy, her hero, kind, handsome Walter be all the things they say about Jews? It makes no sense.
1937, Hetty has rescued the dog Flocke after the elderly couple across the street left and abandoned him. Her Heinrich did not want a Jew’s dog in the house, but finally agreed to allow Hetty to keep him provided she changed his name. One day while walking the dog, now named Kuschi, she chances upon Walter. Despite her misgivings about being with a Jew, Hetty is unable to resist spending time with the person who stole a part of her heart years ago. The more she sees him the less she understands how this warm gentle young man can be guilty of the things the Jews are accused of.
As Hetty falls deeper and deeper in love with Walter, her eyes become opened to the atrocities being committed by the Gestapo in the name of Hitler. If she and Walter are caught, she risks everything, her life included, but she can no longer stand by and watch the man she loves be destroyed by an accident of birth. In the end she will risk everything, but will it be enough.
People Like Us is an amazing book, based on factual events Fein has created characters that can easily be empathised with. She writes without fear or favour, exposing the ease with which a country can be turned against a minority by the spreading of lies, and the punishment of any who refuse to believe the lies.
Thank you to Beauty and Lace Book Club and Head of Zeus publisher for enabling me to read and review this book, and special thanks to Louise Fein for writing a book that so clearly parallels what is happening in the world today with what happened in the thirties. May we always remember and stop history from repeating.
Highly recommended, I give this book 5 stars.
I found Louise Fein’s People Like Us a fascinating read with insights into Hitler’s Germany that I have rarely come across previously. The characters of Hettie and Walter were beautifully drawn and engaging. The storyline not always easy to read but unfailingly compelling. I prefer hard copy books for reading over the e-book format, however overall People Like Us is an exceptional historical romance drama and I would highly recommend!
Wow – I loved this book. It’s a heavy topic but I was still able to read it while on a relaxing holiday – it gripped me from start to finish.
Louise Fein’s, ‘People Like Us’ is set in 1930s Germany and told from the perspective of a German girl – Hetty, daughter of an SS officer. Reading a story from this perspective is unusual for books about WW2 but I really enjoyed seeing it from the other side. While Hetty believes in Hitler, her father and the views of a strong and pure Germany, she starts to see the world from other people’s perspectives. As Hetty begins to fall in love with a man who is against all she has been taught, she begins to fight against her country, her family and herself. It’s a book of love, betrayal, hardship, family and friendship. If you enjoyed books such as The Tattooist of Auschwitz then I think you will like this one too. I also liked the Author’s note at the end, explaining how it related to her own family.
Thanks to Beauty and Lace and Head of Zeus for the opportunity to read and review this book.
People Like Us is a book for those who have an interest in World War history, for me personally I found it hard to get into but Hetty was a great character and the story was good but just not what I usually into, it wasn’t the best I’ve read but it wasn’t the worst either. Thank you for the opportunity to review this book
I found this a very moving book in which I could really connect with the 2 main characters, Hetty and Walter.
When Hetty was young, her brother Karl’s friend Walter, saved her from drowning.
Hetty really liked Walter secretly from then on. Because of Hetty’s family, who supported Hitler and believed the German race was superior to others, lost touch as Walter was Jewish.
They later found each other and fell in love – forbidden love.
It really took me to the 1930’s and Nazi Germany is a very good read if you like historical reads. It will have you crying, happy and all inbetween.