A Past in Hiding: Memory and Survival in Nazi Germany

by Mark Roseman

Book Overview

A heart-stopping survivor story and brilliant historical investigation that offers unprecedented insight into daily life in the Third Reich and the powers and pitfalls of memory. At the outbreak of WWII, Marianne Strauss, the sheltered daughter of well-to-do German Jews, was an ordinary girl, concerned with studies, friends, and romance. Almost overnight she was transformed into a woman of spirit and defiance, a fighter who, when the Gestapo came...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805063269
• ISBN13: 9780805063264
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books
• Length: 491 Pages
• Weight: 1.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A Must Read Book

I have read this book over 2 years ago, but to this day, the book still comes to my mind as one of the best books I have read. I never knew that people in the concentration camps could write and receive letters from people outside of the camps. Mark Roseman not only tells you the story of Marianne Strauss Ellenbogen, but he researches outside sources that proof the almost unbelievable things that she says. This is a must read book for anyone interested in WWII fanatics, and anyone who just wants to know what life was like for a German Jew during the period.

Amazing, if longwinded, detective story

I don't have alot to add to what has already been said about this gripping work. It is an amazing story that draws you in on several levels: as a case study of Jewish life in germany during the Nazi years; as a touching biographical account of an unique woman; as a reseachers detective story; etc. Genealogists might also be interested in the remarkable ways Roseman ferreted out data.Bottom line: a remarkable story, very well told. Roseman is an incredible and tenacious researcher, and a pretty decent writer. It is a work out, and might have been better if condensed by maybe a 100 pages or so.One pet point -- Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's small role in teh narrative comes up a few times. He was a brother-in-law to one of the Wehrmacht generals who wanted Hitler dead and tried to rescue Jews. Bonhoeffer's own story has been told many times -- how he escaped Germany to be a professor in New York, but chose to return to fight Hitler and ended up martyred in a concentration camp. Anyway, Bonhoeffer's name appears in the book more often than the index indicates (see also p. 251, for example), and Roseman never mentions the interesting fact that he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian.Also, poersonally I was longing for more photos as I tried to visualize the cats of characters.Anyway, one of the best things I have read in awhile. Makes Melissa Mueller's bio. of Anne Frank seem dull.

Coming out of hiding.

A Past in Hiding is the story of Marianne Strauss-Ellenbogen and her extraordinary survival during the Holocaust. Presenting us with one young woman's real life story, Roseman does not paint a picture of a saint but that of a real flesh and blood person who, like us all, had great strengths and also weaknesses. She was, after all, in her teens when she was confronted with events too difficult for her to comprehend. She was only a couple of years older than Anne Frank, but what a different reality! Roseman's investigation into Marianne's history engages us deeply in the day-to-day life of herself, her family and friends. We can follow how and why they misjudged the increasingly dangerous environment they lived in. The book has a lot more to offer than that. Given Roseman's extensive knowledge of modern German history, he is able to draw a multi-layered picture of every day life for the Jewish community in Germany during the Nazi period. The investigation into the role of the Abwehr in protecting selected Jewish Germans is pertinent for the recent debate around the complicity of the regular army with the SS and Gestapo. Moving between historical chronology and present day commentary and personal reflection on Marianne, the author pieces together a mosaic like a jigsaw puzzle. For most readers it will shed new light on the complexities of this period in recent history like very few other books I have read. Roseman writes in a style that combines the historical with the intimate personal. He conveys his assessment of the characters and situations with empathy for their situation and struggles. At the time he reflects on discrepancies in their statements and recollections of the past. One of the most dramatic documents in the book is the diary of Marianne's fiancé, Ernst. He was able to smuggle it out of the concentration camp Izbica thanks to an unconventional courier. One of the family acquaintances with probable links to the Gestapo, was nevertheless willing to act as courier for parcels from Marianne to Ernst; he also brought back this very rare contemporary account of life in the camp. Roseman digs into historical records to verify and complement the description. As part of his investigation, he interviewed the courier's widow as well as others who could add to the story. I started reading A Past in Hiding primarily because, as a child growing up after the war, I knew some of the people connected with Marianne and the "Bund". It was Bund members who provided shelter to Marianne while she was on the run from 1943 to 1945, thus risking their own lives and security. The Bund was a small but committed group of humanitarians and socialists who helped numerous victims of the Holocaust. One of the survivors protected by the Bund, Lisa Jacob, became a friend of my family. She influenced my life more than she ever knew and also much more than even I understood for many years while growing up. However, my interest in this extraordinary book gr

Extraordinary archives well assembled

More than the focus on Marianne, I came away from this book thinking about Ernest. Marianne's story is better than most fiction in it's ability to illustrate a time and place gone, to breathe life into people we've never met and to serve as a larger parable for the history surrounding her. Ernest has his own place in this narrative. He is a look at the soul of a loving person trying desperatly to remain himself in impossible times. Both people of extreme character, Marianne and Ernest are worth knowing. Far beyond that, is the author's exploration of oral history and the pitfalls it contains. (That alone recommends this book to the casual family historian.) The inadequately documented actions of ordinary Germans of decency is given a boost by Marianne's papers and shines deserved light on many. If you've read several dozen testimonies already, this book still offers a great deal of new information to consider.

Poignant Biography of a Holocaust Survivor

Professor Mark Roseman's "A Past in Hiding" is a fascinating, often riveting, scholarly account of Marianne Strauss Ellenbogen's life in Nazi Germany. I suspect that this fine book will be remembered as one of the best written about the Holocaust. Its excellence stems from Roseman's analytic, almost psychological, portrayal of Ms. Ellenbogen's childhood and early adulthood. She comes across as a willful, headstrong person who sought solace more in her identity as a German than as a German Jew while the Nazi extermination of her family, friends, and countless others proceeded at a relentless pace. The book also introduces us to "The Bund", a hitherto unknown socialist anti-Nazi resistance movement based in Essen, Ms. Ellenbogen's birthplace, and describes how its members protected Ms. Ellenbogen during the two years she was in hiding towards the end of the Second World War. Professor Roseman also describes how other Germans, including some loyal Nazis, acted heroically to save Ms. Ellenbogen and to delay for nearly two years the eventual deportation of her family to Nazi concentration camps. We read eventually of her mundane life after the war in Great Britain, married to the Orthodox Jewish doctor who rescued her, keeping her tragic past hidden for decades to both family and friends.