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This is a diary of Annalise Meissner, a young German Jew with long time ago falsified papers, living a carefree life in pre-war Berlin. A talented ballerina, she comes from a wealthy family and at first doesn’t want to concern herself with the changes her country starts undergoing under the new Nazi regime. However, when the oppressions against the Jewish population begin, she realizes that she can’t be a silent bystander and swears to help her people in any way possible. She falls in love and gets married to her father's longtime friend, Standartenführer Heinrich Friedmann, who even though he works for SD – the Reich Secret Service – seems to share her views, and soon Annalise learns why. Her new husband turns out to be a counterintelligence agent working for the US government, and together they start a dangerous game against the sinister Gestapo, trying to save as many lives as they can and not to compromise themselves. But it's not only the persecuted people Annalise wants to save; she meets the leader of the Austrian SS Gruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner who everyone seems to fear, but for some reason Annalise isn't intimidated by the Chief of the Austrian Gestapo and doesn't believe the rumors about his brutality. Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner isn't hiding the fact that he would love to get this beautiful girl as his mistress, but Annalise, despite the mutual attraction, stays faithful to her beloved husband. However, the risky game she’s playing will soon change everything…
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(Spoiler Free)
I don't have enough words to express my feelings on this one (in the best way possible). The story starts with a fast forward to 1946 in Nuremberg with Heinrich Friedmann meeting with a former SS brother asking for Heinrich to deliver a note. The next chapter we meet Annalise, who has always dreamed of being a ballet dancer, on her eleventh birthday. She finds out that her family is Jewish and has been hiding this information in Germany. She also learns that her father has secretly joined the Nazi Party. She develops a crush on Heinrich who is a friend of her fathers.
When she is seventeen, she is one of the top dancers in her ballet company. After a recital, she gains the attention from another SS officer named Ulrich Reinhard who insists on taking her for dinner. Her parents are 100% against this, as they should be. Her dance partner, Adam, sides with her parents.
Annalise faces so many obstacles in this first part that made me fear for her life. I refuse to give anything away, but this takes place while the Jews were first starting to be sent away and to Auschwitz.
This is by far my favorite book of Ellie's... Probably ... until I read book 2. She is able to send you back to a place that is so horrifying and hard to imagine. I don't want to be there, but I can't keep reading if I tried!
If you don't mind, please read this book! I gotta go start Part 2 now!!!!! :)