Review: The Lost Book of Bonn

 The Lost Book of Bonn by Brianna Labuskes (William Morrow, 19 March 2024).

The story begins in 1946, when we meet Emmy Clarke, a librarian who is sent overseas by her employer, The Library of Congress, to catalogue and "rehome" works of literature that had been confiscated by the Nazis.*  She is sternly instructed that all materials  must remain in the building, and that staff are frisked as they leave to ensure this.

On her first day, she comes across a small volume of poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, with a handwritten inscription: “To Annelise, my brave Edelweiss Pirate...Forever yours, Eitan.”

Intrigued, she successfully smuggles the book home, deciding that she must find out more about Annelise and Eitan. 

In succeeding chapters, we meet Annelise Fischer and her younger sister Christina, on opposing political sides in Nazi Germany, and follow their lives through the Reich's rise to power and the resulting war.  

One of the pivotal events in the story of the sisters is the protest by the German wives of Jewish men who'd been detained by the Gestapo.  The Rosenstrasse Protest was the only mass public demonstration by Germans against the deportation of Jews.  

With skill and sensitivity, Brianna Labuskes tells this fascinating, hard-to-put-down story of women living through horrific times.  

The book concludes with a detailed Author's Note, explaining Labuskes' motivations for writing the book, as well as some of her sources and research methods.  

Highly recommended!!

*The Offenbach Archival Depot, located in a small town just outside of Frankfurt, operated in conjunction (or perhaps in competition) with the more well-known group called The Monuments Men.