Once the Deed Is Done

by Rachel Seiffert

Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.
Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.
The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter's events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can't carry his secret alone.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, World War II, Ebooks, Germany

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Rachel Seiffert is one of Virago’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists. Her first book, The Dark Room, (2001) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and made into the feature film Lore. In 2003, she was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, and in 2011 she received the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Field Study, her collection of short stories published in 2004, received an award from PEN International. Her second novel, Afterwards (2007) third novel The Walk Home (2014), and fourth novel A Boy in Winter (2017), were all longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her books have been published in eighteen languages.

Seiffert’s subject is ordinary lives in extraordinary times. Her characters have included the 12-year-old daughter of an SS officer in 1945, a Polish seasonal worker on a German asparagus farm after the fall of the iron curtain, and – most recently – a young Ukrainian man faced with the choice between resistance and collaboration during the Nazi occupation.

Rachel Seiffert has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths College and Glasgow University, and delivered seminars at the Humboldt University Berlin, Manchester University, and the Faber Academy in London, amongst others; she is a returning tutor at the Arvon Foundation. Her particular interest is teaching writing in schools, delivering workshops for the East Side Side Educational Trust in Hackney, Wellington College in Berkshire, and a number of state secondaries in south east London. She is currently Writer in Residence at Haseltine School in SE26, and works with First Story at St Martin in the Fields Secondary in Tulse Hill.

Reviews

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seiffert's new novel again resonates with her family story, being on the "wrong" side of history. She is from a German family whose grandparents were Nazis. Despite being raised in Britain, the Second World War was always on the table for discussion and her work cleverly distils the huge amount of information she must hold..

This is a multi-perspective narrative set in the countryside near Hamburg as the war concludes. The colossal backdrop, seen through the eyes of Ruth, a Red Cross worker, opens into the lives and perspectives on the aftermath of The Third Reich from both German families and separated families transported here. The horrors, the colossal displacement of men, women and children from their homes and families and what going "home" means for many of them. Russia under Stalin now includes much of Eastern Europe and, for the refugees, despite it being where their families are, is not where they want to return.

As ever Seiffert sees through the glass darkly and brings, for me, a new telling of a much told period of history. Whilst this is set in a short period of time, it is multi-layered slices of life that brings together the quotidian, world politics, resilience and the very worst aspects of humanity. All shown by characters presented substantively however little we saw of them.

I found it absorbing and thought provoking. What more can you want from a novel?

With thanks to #NetGalley and #Virago for the opportunity to read and review

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once the Deed Is Done is set in the closing months of World War II. American and British forces are on Germany’s western borders and Soviet troops are closing in on Berlin. Millions of people have been displaced during the six years of war including those taken from their homes by the Nazis to work as forced labour on farms and in factories. Told from multiple points of view, the book explores the impact of the war on the displaced people but also German citizens now facing the prospect of defeat.

Ruth Novak, a Red Cross officer, has been posted to one of the camps set up to house displaced people on the site of a munitions factory outside the small town of Lüneburg in Lower Saxony. Initially her focus is on the needs of the former factory workers most of whom are suffering from extreme malnutrition as a result of their ill treatment. But day by day other displaced people arrive at the camp seeking food and shelter. What many of them are also seeking is news of loved ones. Ruth diligently records their details on index cards, to which she adds names of people they want to trace. ‘Always more names to add to her records. Each a dear friend, or a grown son, or a neighbour to someone.’ But how to begin to reunite people in the chaotic aftermath of war? Ruth becomes equally concerned about the fate of those in a rumoured ‘winter transport’ of labourers which no-one in the town seems to want to talk about. And her superiors insist there are other priorities. As it turns out, Ruth was right to be concerned although I suspect most readers will have a good idea about what might have happened.

Meanwhile the residents of Lüneburg are having to come to terms with their country’s defeat as well as the growing number of people housed in the camp which seems to expand almost daily, impinging more and more on the town and its resources. Some are mourning those killed in the war, others are anxiously awaiting news of when their loved ones will return whilst those who actively supported the Nazi regime face being brought to account. For some though the end of the Nazi regime comes as a relief.

The phrase ‘Everyone has their lost’ sums up the book. The German people’s belief in their country’s invincibility has been shattered and their homeland is now war-ravaged and divided. For many of the displaced people in the camp returning home means going back to villages destroyed by war, or in the case of Polish and Ukranian workers, to places now under the influence of the Soviet Union meaning they no longer have their national or cultural identity. Young people who grew up through the war years have had their childhoods stolen. And then of course there are the missing, those lost perhaps never to be found.

The book sheds a welcome spotlight on the plight of displaced people. Although set in World War II, it’s not difficult to come up with contemporary parallells. Arguably, the same is true when it comes to the issue of complicitly. As Ruth comments at one point, ‘This country… These people. They let all this happen right under their noses?’

[Aoife Cassidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rachel Seiffert is an acclaimed author, previously shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, and in her new novel Once the Deed is Done, she tackles a community held together by threads as the Allies advance and close in on victory in Nazi Germany in 1945. That community is a sleepy hamlet in the Lueneburg Heide, the remote region outside of Hamburg, where a town's munitions factory has been relying on forced labour to churn out weapons of war.

The Lueneburg Heide was the scene of the unconditional surrender to the Allies and is the area where the body of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS in Nazi Germany, was secretly buried in an unmarked grave. The location for the novel is atmospheric and evocative, but the story itself is somewhat fragmented.

We meet various members of the community - the mayor, the schoolmaster and his wife, a farming family - as well as newcomer Ruth from London, a Red Cross nurse who sets up a refugee camp at the munitions factory. There's a suggestion that something sinister happened in the town during the last winter of the war, but it's only at the very conclusion of the novel that we find out what that was, though the reader will draw hints throughout. I found the reveal just took a little too long to come together and what started out as promising and interesting just ended up drifting for too long.

The insights into life for young people at this time is what really stands out in Seiffert's novel - the grim reality of donning the Hitler Youth uniform, or being sent off to certain death on the Eastern Front, or being forcibly separated from your parents and herded into forced labour, or being forcibly returned after the war to Stalin's communist bloc, paints the bleak picture of life for a generation. A good read that I struggled to connect with in a meaningful way. 3/5 stars

*Many thanks to Little Brown Book Group for the arc via Netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.

[Caren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another example of a novel that suffered because of its length. Had there been more stringent editing, the novel could have retained its momentum. For me, it was a struggle to move through the narrative and retain my interest in anything except finishing the book.
Seiffert explored the sadness and loss of hope of those being held within the DP camps at the end of WWII. Held in Germany as forced labourers, their stories are filled with the deaths of loved ones and their fear both of remaining indefinitely in the camp and being returned to their beloved homeland, Ukraine, now under Russian control. The story jumps from one character to the next, from one sad story to the next, often leaving me confused. The focus was often on the displaced children, desperately hoping to be reunited with their mothers.

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the closing days of the Second World War, during the harshest of winters, this story unfolds in a village in the north of Germany, near Hamburg. As in previous work, Rachel Seiffert once again revisits ordinary or not Germans at war's end. Who is culpable, who resents, who turns a blind eye. What happened during that one forced march from the munitions factory in the snowy dead of night. All these categories and questions are appropriate once the deed is done.

Seiffert writes in short decisive chapters seemingly disjointed but each well reflects the chaos and confusion at war's end. The uncertainty of the villagers, will their sons return from the east, will their husbands be released by the allied soldiers. When will the English leave.

Yet it is the story, not of the townsfolk, but those of the innocent taken from Poland and Ukraine as forced labourers, that hits the hardest. Much of the novel takes place in a Red Cross displacement camp on the outskirts of the village. Mothers whose children have been taken from them. Children whose mothers were ripped away from them. Men both old and young taken, all facing the unknown if there is even a home or family left to return to. I found this part of the book haunting, heart wrenching and difficult knowing that while this is written about 1945 such atrocities and displacements continue in other wars now.

Thank you to Little Brown Book Group, Virago, and to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a small, isolated town near Hamburg the war is reaching its end. The soldiers in the forced labour camp are deserting and the townspeople know it's only a matter of time before the Allies arrive. A forced march passes through the town one night and the repercussions can only stay shrouded in darkness for so long. This is a tale with multiple narrators, from the Red Cross officer tasked with finding home for the displaced prisoners of war and finding families who have been split up, to the townspeople themselves, some delighted that the war is over, some not. In the background hums a darker catastrophe and shame. This is generously written, beautifully imagined and powerful in scope.

[Iain Snelling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Germany as the war draws to a close, and in the early months of the peace, had millions of DPs (displaced persons) former inmates of the wide variety of camps and forced labour industry. This book looks at the tensions in the emerging position for a number of angles: from a camp of DPs at a former factory, and from several member of the German community. Later former German soldiers return as DPs begin to make then journeys home, or elsewhere. A concealed dark event is a recurring theme. An interesting context and some well developed characters, but the characters and plot with the late reveal were significantly understated.

[Paul Snelling · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the immediate aftermath of the second world war, millions of displaced people were housed in camps in Germany, anxiously awaiting the redrawing of boundaries and influence and the return of normality-of-a-sort. At the same time German mothers and wives were longing for news about returning soldiers all the while coming to terms with the wholesale defat of the country and the questions that defeat brought. Who did what – and who knew what – who heard what - about what happened, not only in the centre of the Reich, but here, in their neighbourhood and recently. The novel addresses these questions via an open camp and the characters from all sides who lived in and around it. The book held me, but not so much as some of her earlier work in similar areas.

[Holly Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book didn’t quite have the impact I think it thought it was going to have.

It was an interesting concept looking at the perspectives of villagers who lived near a concentration camp and had no idea of the horrors committed. We see an insight into those who suspected something, those who witnessed the horrors but were forced to be silent out of fear and those who genuinely had no idea. We also see the camp’s perspective with the POWs waiting to go home and find their lost ones. This in itself is probably what pent the book some credit and I liked the idea. However, I do think execution was somewhat poor and disjointed.

It feels as if it’s trying to set itself up to be a mystery and there is a mystery but you don’t really know that it’s an actual mystery until the point of reveal which takes away from that whole point. The multiple POVs were also confusing and definitely drowned out the more significant parts of the storyline. There are even some POVs that seem very random and misplaced. Or we get attached to one POV for a couple of chapters and then we never hear from them again. It’s all very disjointed and odd. Sadly this really took away the enjoyment of the story as well as the clarity. I’ve come away still somewhat confused by the book, its story and its purpose.

[Sarah Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this. Engaging story and a really interesting view of a time and geography and population that has rarely been covered (at least not in fiction). The impact of war on ordinary people whether the aggressor or the oppressed was done heartbreakingly well.

[Paul McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Struggled for 100 pages. Rarely written about topic, a north German town immediately at the end of WW2 amd the folk that live there plus a dark secret

[Gail Darwent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emotional , harrowing end of WWII story

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written collection of stories and perspectives from a German town after the Second World War. Very thought provoking and caught the complex emotions and problems of the time so well. I absolutely enjoyed every page of it.

[Ernie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once the Deed is Done
by Rachel Seiffert
Refugees were known and resented as ‘refos’ in my childhood after World War II and the term displaced persons (DP’s) began to be used but ‘refos’ persisted. Being a talkative child who read, my first refo, at Waverley Public School, Frank Ziebel (the first person in Miss Brough’s roll with a surname beginning with Z) was sat next to me to learn English, although he obviously had more than the third class teacher reckoned. Another derogatory term, ‘Balts’ entered my vocabulary when Ivor Konisten came to school from the Baltic Sea Estonia, followed later by two other ‘Balts’ and their father, Robert and Heather Boetcher, DP’s with their names already Anglicised. They lived in the overcrowded ‘residential’, the former mansion opposite the park, long broken up into rooms where residents shared only two toilets, one bathroom and one shower room with some sinks and hot plates attached to the stairwell landings, some open to the weather. Later came Bibi Abraham from somewhere, possibly Germany then Xavier Abela from Malta who quickly assimilated by playing backyard cricket at my place. The longer term Italian migrants blamed the Maltese for ruining their reputation as integrated Australians.

Rachel Seiffert’s historical novel is the first one that I have read to give prominence to WWII displaced persons, here the labourers sent to Germany to work on farms and factories, replacing the men who had been conscripted into the armed forces. She chose the setting of Luneberg Heath, north west of Hamburg where the surrender was signed although she never mentions that, as if those left in the small town and farm lands there were kept in ignorance until they saw the arrival of British troops and eventually the British occupation force and Red Cross whose representative Ruth Novak from a Jewish, Polish family in London, is the central character of the novel. Seiffert begins with Ruth’s preparations prior to the surrender and the growing awareness of the Luneberg Heath population that the war was in its final months. Each chapter is headed with a monthly title from 1944. When word got around that the Potsdam conference in 1945 had redrawn the Polish, Russian and German borders there was consternation from the labourers who were eventually housed in tents and Nissan huts near the works which the Nazis had converted to an armaments factory. A traditional, dark German pine forest almost hides the factory and the crimes committed nearby.

The central event of the novel is the mystery of what happened that winter when the labourers were supposed to be evacuated by the Nazi army but the trucks sped away without them and many, including women and children were forced to march through the snow at night after some event indicated by the sounding of the factory siren which called the village mayor and policeman to take other townsmen there as some of the labourers fled. One woman with a young baby came to the farm of old Hannah and Gustav whose son Kurt had only recently been conscripted and asked for help to sleep in the barn then stole food and Gustav’s winter coat and fled, leaving the baby which Hanne persuaded Gustav to keep in secret. At this stage rumours of atrocities were only made certain in the factory about Dachau but the townsfolk claim ignorance and support the brown shirt mayor previously derided as a loudmouth and fool by Arno, the schoolmaster and his friend Brandt the builder. Arno becomes a target for the mayor and policeman when he has not hung the portrait of Hitler on the schoolhouse wall. He is stood down then conscripted but still forbids his daughters Freya and Ursel to join the Hitler Youth.

During the last months and after the end of the war, Seiffert then tells the stories of the children from the town and their relationships with the displaced persons who now include children separated from their mothers and many mothers from the farms who have been separated from their children. Ruth’s task is to gain information for the Red Cross to trace the missing persons but she ends up running the place because of her empathy and language skills and the assistance of an educated Pole who agonises about fleeing or returning to his home town. Ruth and the English major in charge in the town hall face difficult decisions trying to compromise between available resources and the antagonism of the townsfolk, many of whom are jealous of the larger food ration given to the DP’s and the opinion grows that they are being punished for starting the war.

The schoolmaster’s daughters and Benno, the son of the policeman who has been gaoled in Hamburg, find a refuge in a deserted shepherd’s caravan in a secluded part of the heath nearer to the factory and the old water mill. This more familiar story of teenaged romance of the Germans and the similar romance of two teenaged DP’s provides some relief from the serious problems faced by those kept in the camp.

I read the stories easily and appreciated the insights given to this neglected area of WWII experiences but like most historical novels there is little scope for character development as so many different characters are created to represent the large range of people affected by the uncertainties, ironies and catastrophes of the war and the chaos of the early months of peace. For me, the most satisfying parts came from the children’s escape to the secret parts of the heath in the summer where they restore the derelict caravan, the DP’s care for the teenaged lovers and, in contrast, with some comedy, their blackmarket, theft and secret brandy still operations.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Rachel Seiffert's latest novel explores an aspect of WW2 that seems not to have had much attention in historical fiction: it tackles the nightmarish experience of DPs: displaced persons in the aftermath of the German defeat.

As the Allies advanced towards victory, they encountered chaos on an unprecedented scale.  Although The Aftermath (2014), by Rhidian Brook comes to mind as a novel of British Occupation in postwar Germany, not much fiction has been written from the perspective of those whose job it was to cope with the survivors of the conflict.  As Helen Lewis's story of her father's experience shows in The Dead Still Cry Out, the Story of a Combat Cameraman (2018), in the early days and as liberation progressed, these were military men who were utterly unprepared for the enormity of the Holocaust psychologically and logistically.   At the same time, there were places where soldiers came across the shattered remnants of the Nazi slave labour force that propped up the Reich.  The true enormity of this war crime became clear as the Western front was liberated and the fate of about six million displaced survivors was recognised, but Seiffert has focussed her novel through the small but illuminating lens of events in a small town in Northern Germany.

One of the reasons the Soviets fought so ferociously against the Nazis was they understood from what occurred in German-occupied Soviet territory that the threat was existential.  Nazi ideology classified Slavs as Untermenschen (subhumans) to be eliminated from their homelands in order to make space for the extension of the Third Reich into Eastern Europe.  Although slave labour was brutishly deployed throughout Occupied Europe and in North Africa, it was for those from the Eastern Front that conditions were the worst.  Men and women deemed fit to work were deported from occupied territories to farms and factories serving the war economy of the Reich.  So although they weren't subjected to industrial scale extermination as the Jews were, they were regarded as expendable and they were often literally worked to death.

And of course those men and women had families.  They had children.

As the author's note at the back of the novel tells us, their fate, as their parents were shunted from place to place, resulted in horrific numbers of surviving displaced children, collated into one register by the UN in 1948 as it tried to reunite families and organise repatriation:

They surveyed orphanages, hospitals, care homes and foster homes across the English, French and American zones, and the western sectors of Berlin [LH: i.e. not including those in the USSR], finding a total of 347,057 children.  191,199 were in institutions, 130,682 in German foster homes, and 21,176 had been adopted by German families. (p.445)

Seiffert portrays this unimaginable chaos with polyphonic viewpoints...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2026/02/26/o...

[Valeria Vescina · Rating 5 out of 5]

HISTORICAL FICTION AT ITS BEST
Once The Deed Is Done sheds light on a page of history rarely covered in fiction, immersing us so deeply in the events and in the protagonists’ inner and outer worlds that it feels as if we were there.
Lüneburg Heath, Northern Germany, 1945. It’s March, and the Reich’s defeat is imminent. We follow the thoughts and actions of the residents of a small town through multiple narrators’ points of view: young and old, those who were faithful to the Nazis, those who put up quiet resistance to them... Something mysterious and sinister happens one night on the town’s outskirts, near the munition works manned by Eastern European forced labourers. Fragments of that night’s events transpire slowly, as some of the townsfolk were there, or watched from a distance, or heard rumours. We eventually discover what happened, through the eyes of a British Army sergeant, of a young fugitive carrying a baby in her arms, and of Ruth, a British Jewish Red Cross officer. Ruth and the sergeant oversee a camp for displaced people, set up by Allied forces at the war’s end on the town’s outskirts. There, we track the fortunes and inner lives of a large cast of characters: men, women, and two children who are among the hundreds of thousands forcibly transported by the Nazis to work in German factories and farms. Among them are mothers separated from their children, and vice-versa. Ruth works relentlessly to find the whereabouts of their loved ones, a Sisyphean task in the immediate post-war chaos. She faces tough choices every day: whether to ignore evidence of black-market activity in the camp or not; to move the two children to Hamburg, where they would be better catered for, but where their chance of finding again those they love would be lower, unless... Nor is repatriation the wish of every displaced person: those from Poland and Ukraine fear returning to lands now under Stalin’s control.
Few novelists can weave such a compelling narration through so many characters’ perspectives. Authors capable of it reward us with an uncommonly rich reading experience. We hear both the choral effect and the individual voices. Seiffert does not shy away from the enormity of the horror at the centre of this novel, but she also paints the minutiae of every character with the finest brush. The protagonists are three-dimensional people. The town where the shocking events have taken place is both itself and a microcosm of Germany: who supported, who acquiesced in, who resisted Nazism? One of the characters, the yard man Herr Brandt, realises the only reason he’s not on the Allies’ list of Nazi sympathisers is that he was not awarded a manufacturing contract he desperately sought. He contrasts his own cowardice with schoolmaster Arno’s brave dissent, and yet Arno feels a coward for not having done more. Through her unsentimental and yet moving prose, Seiffert lays out the facts, and poses questions that linger in the mind about the past and the present. That is what the best historical fiction does. Seiffert’s novels have received well deserved recognition: one was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, another three were longlisted for the Women’s Prize... Once The Deed Is Done warrants that and more. Highly recommended.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once the Deed is Done by Rachel Seiffert is an exceptional work of historical fiction, richly deserving of its 2025 Booker Prize shortlisting in a strong field which also included the winning Flesh, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (previously reviewed on this site). Little attention has been given to the millions of slave labourers employed by the Nazi Reich and Seiffert dedicates her book to displaced persons (DPs) everywhere whilst focusing on the six million in Germany at the end of World War II. The story is narrated from multiple perspectives including Ruth, the Red Cross officer working with her Polish translator Stanislaw, Benno, the son of the town policeman and his friendship with Freya, the daughter of the schoolmaster on opposite sides of the conflict and the orphans Yeva, and her seven-year-old brother, Sasha in the DP camp.
Seiffert approaches the complexities of twentieth-century European history with a remarkable sense of restraint, allowing the emotional and moral weight of her subject to emerge gradually rather than through overt dramatics. In some ways its muted tone becomes its greatest strength and simultaneously its greatest weakness. Seiffert resists sensationalism, instead offering a quiet, measured narrative voice that mirrors the internal lives of her characters, and this subtlety creates a deeply immersive reading experience, where moments of reflection and silence carry as much significance as action. However, the understated prose measured all events and ethical dilemmas equally when sometimes I wanted to feel the fragility of life a little more.
Seiffert’s historical detail is deftly handled, never overwhelming the narrative but always grounding it in authenticity. She captures the lingering consequences of conflict and the ways in which individuals navigate guilt, responsibility, and survival in its aftermath. Her characters are drawn with compassion and nuance, revealing how ordinary lives are shaped by extraordinary circumstances.
The novel’s power lies not in grand gestures but in its quiet insistence on truth and memory. By maintaining such a controlled and reflective tone, Seiffert allows the past to resonate with a contemporary audience, reminding readers that history is not only a series of events but a collection of deeply human experiences.

[Steve Cavill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once the Deed is Done

A village in Northern Germany
A time of uncertainty towards the end of World War Two
A secret that there are only rumours about
Stories about the forgotten
A political struggle

What an interesting premise of a book… there can’t be many books that concentrates on the displaced at the time of the German surrender… so the storyline already had many things going for it..

I loved the multi-person narrative... I loved the different perspectives of the different characters embroiled in this single event in time – a time of uncertainty – not knowing what’s happening and what’s going to happen and how this is going to affect their lives moving forwards. It’s very interesting viewing the events unfolding through the different characters affected by the storyline in completely different ways – you’ve got the English Red Cross worker, you’ve got the young boy stuck in the displacement camp, you’ve got the young local boy who is a member of the Hitler Youth whose father goes missing as the Germans start to withdraw from the village, you’ve got the woman who’s son is wounded from the war but “finds” a baby left from one of the displaced, you’ve got the local school teacher’s family, and there are many other characters with appealing backstories and interactions that keeps the story ticking along and keeps it interesting..

On top of that, all the villagers are intrigued by the happenings at the local munitions works – and are shocked by the conditions of the workers that appears to be working there not knowing the full story of what’s happening there…

There’s so much going on and a vast array of characters that is beautifully written and sensitive to the people at a time of history that is not well covered but important nonetheless…

Many thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and Virago and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this fascinating book

[Daniel Rees · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning of 1945 brings spring to a small rural town in northern Germany. The Second World War is coming to an end and the occupants of this town now have to come to terms with the aftermath of not just the war, but an unsettling event which unfolded before their eyes. Once the Deed is Done is told from numerous perspectives, contrasting the aggressors becoming prisoners of war, and the prisoners of war becoming free.

There is a wonderful balance between those locals who turn a blind eye to what has happened, bitter at their town's new English occupation, and those locals who welcome the occupation. There is also a contrast between the locals left in the town while their loved ones were sent to the war effort and are now considered prisoners of war, and those prisoners who are now free but are still displaced from their own hometowns and loved ones. There are numerous characters introduced to the reader, but all extremely important for the structure of the story, and the hard-hitting ending the reader is introduced to. my only personal criticism is that I would have liked less giveaway in the blurb about the novel's end events and more from Benno's story, so that the full extent of what happened in this small town would have been as shocking to the reader as it would have been to the characters in the novel.

The book feels like an homage to everyone who was separated from their loved ones during the war and who were dragged from their homes and forced into labour. This is very much their story, and a stark reminder to us of what has come before us, and what could very easily happen again. a unique story with powerful and accessible writing, its easy to see why this made the Shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once The Deed is Done -centers around a German Village shortly after the Nazi Surrender and is told from the point of view of several people who are in the village at that time.
This was a really interesting book . I particularly liked that it highlighted that for the the thousands of people who had been displaced during the war , life did not immediately improve or indeed change very much. Their lives may not have still been in peril, but they carried on living in camps not knowing, if their loved ones were alive or dead or if they still had homes to go to.
The story lines concerning the Red Cross displacement camp were particularly strong and I really liked Ruth Novak, an English/ German Jew who volunteers for the Red Cross and runs the camp.
The author also attempts to capture the politics of a German Village , as the villagers themselves wake up from The war and the horror they have witnessed. I enjoyed this part less, as I was never completely sure what the author was trying to portray.
I am not convinced this book will stay with me, but I'd definitely like to find out more about what happened in Central Europe at the end of the war , so for that I am very glad I read the book.

[Mark Cornelius · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel describes a time in history that is rarely written about: the ending of the Second World War and the messiness or difficulties of returning life to normal. It is set in a small German town, and starts just before the war’s end. The town is home to a factory that is run using forced labour. And something terrible happens one night that is witnessed by some of those who live in the town. The war ends and the town finds itself in the English zone of occupied Germany. The former factory is turned into a home for displaced people (DPs) - the former workers and others who had been forced from their homes in Eastern Europe and sent to work for the German war effort. The Germans in the town, whose morals were compromised by their support for Hitler and other things they had witnessed, show little remorse. Indeed anger is a more common emotion. Some of Sieffert's family were enthusiastic Nazis during that terrible time in German history, so she shows little sympathy for most of the town’s German population. The book tells the story of the Germans, of the DPs, and of the English who are overseeing the return to normality.

I must admit that I did not really like this book. It’s very boring. It is told chronologically, except for a flashback at the end. There is very little tension in it, despite there being enormous scope for introducing some, given the backdrop. I suspect life might have been boring for those waiting for news of loved ones and when they might be allowed to return home. But that is not a good reason for making the book dull. There were other irritating aspects. Sieffert’s use of punctuation for speech in the text is often a bit confusing, so that the reader isn’t entirely sure who is speaking. And she has an annoying habit of including untranslated foreign languages, when people are speaking. Often the reader isn’t sure if they have missed something vital. I didn’t want to read the book with Google translate open on my lap.

So it’s an opportunity missed of shining a light on a rarely described period of history. That’s a great shame.

[Jamad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid, atmospheric novel with a clever multi-perspective narrative, though I found it ultimately a little too long for its own good.

The story follows several interconnected characters in the aftermath of a mysterious event. We meet Clare, a woman returning to her childhood village, clearly haunted by something from her past. Then there’s Martin, a teacher and local historian who seems to know more than he’s letting on, and Ellie, a teenager who stumbles across unsettling clues that the adults are trying to keep buried. Through their alternating viewpoints, there’s a constant suggestion that something sinister has happened, and that the truth has been hidden for years.

This structure worked well at first — the different voices add texture, and the air of menace builds nicely — but for me the reveal took a bit too long to arrive. By the time we got there, the tension had started to drag, and I felt the book overall could have been tighter and more impactful at a shorter length.

Still, it’s a well-written exploration of guilt, memory, and the way communities conspire to keep secrets. Worth reading if you enjoy slow-burn literary mysteries, though you’ll need some patience to see it through.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rural northern Germany in 1945 as the allies are moving forward and the war is coming to an end. Ruth, a young woman of Polish descent, arrives as part of the post-war Red Cross efforts. A camp is established for the Gastarbeiter survivors - the many thousands who were brought from the east, often with force (including children), as labour for the Nazi war machine.
"I was taken with both my children. They were nine and six, only nine and six. Where are they"
As Ruth hears these stories she records the details on individual index cards (real documents are now held at the Arolsen Archives). Along side of the displaced inhabitants of the camp are the German villagers, who have their own secrets and strong opinions.
"What good does it do to keep these workers here ... Why must the English hold them under our noses, when they should be sending them all home."
This was an interesting novel which I largely enjoyed and admired, but somehow, it didn't quite have the impact of other fictional representations of this period of history for me - Catherine Chidgey's Remote Sympathy comes immediately to mind.

[Chris L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Booker-shortlisted author Rachel Seiffert returns with another stunner, "Once the Deed is Done." The novel tells the story of what happens to a group of characters in Hamburg as the war ends. She examines the issues of culpability and how we process our connection to horrific events. How do people go on when they have ignored the horrors of the Holocaust and the war? How do the victims live amongst people who collaborated or said/did nothing?

Seiffert answers these questions through multiple narrators, and she does so with an empathy that is in short supply these days (rather disturbing and disgusting how Nazism and its accompanying violence is on the rise in 2025). Seiffert never shies away from the horrors of the holocaust and the evils perpetrated on human beings. Yet it's a quiet book that allows readers to ask themselves what they would have done. Would they have spoken out or would they have acquiesced?

[Peter Willoughby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unususal setting. Germany just before the end of World War Two.
The storyline was set up wonderfully well.
The bulk of the action is in a Displaced Person's Camp, but there is interacting with the local inhabitants.
Great Characters, Good story. The interaction between the people was especially well thought out, and was spot on.
I liked the fact that the setting and storyline was not the normal fare for books such as this.
I really liked this book, only spoiled for me by the end of the book, being a little hurried or cut short.
This is fairly common for modern books.
This may be so that a follow up story can be written ( I do hope so, I would like to read more about these characters).
My thanks to the author for the hours of enjoyment that the book has brought me, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in Northern Germany at the end of World War Two, Once The Deed Is Done examines the impact of the war’s aftermath on a small town as they wait for their menfolk to return from the front. The narrative unfolds primarily through the eyes of Ruth, a British Jewish Red Cross worker running a camp housing freed slave labourers, and local people slowly coming to terms with Germany’s defeat.

Rachel Seiffert does not go in for broad brushstrokes. Instead, the picture is built up gradually from lots of small scenes as the reality of what has happened slowly becomes understood by everyone, even the children. She emphasises the ordinariness of the community. These are people like us, preoccupied with day to day concerns, in the midst of a terrible reality in which they are all incriminated.

Beautifully written and profoundly moving.

[Simina · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Once the Deed Is Done" explores a part of history we don’t often see—the fragile, messy aftermath of WWII and the struggle to rebuild lives. Set in a small German town, it brings together the perspectives of locals, displaced people, and the British overseeing the transition, all shaped by what came before.

The atmosphere and subject are powerful, especially the focus on forced labour and the uncertain lives of those left behind after the war. But for me, the book didn’t fully land. The constant shifts between characters and storylines made it hard to stay connected, and at times I felt a bit lost moving from one thread to another.

It’s thoughtful and important, but I couldn’t help feeling that the length and structure worked against it. A meaningful read, though not an easy one to stay immersed in.

[James! · Rating 3 out of 5]

The intent at heart is very nice and I do enjoy the storytelling, the way everyone exists in this same reality in different situations. I think leaning on history can be great, using fiction as a tribute to people's experiences. However I think the scope holds back the novel, I believe it tries to deal with too many perspectives that I didn't really feel the story move how I'd expect. Think it may have been suited to a smaller cast where stories could be explored with greater depth. Also the use of foreign languages wasn't up my street, felt inconsistent and at times hard you follow. Overall though a nice read, a reminder that catastrophe leaves behind many, definitely pushes me to consider the way that this displacement and struggle exists in people's lives today

[Claire Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Northern Germany over a couple of years starting in early 1945, the events described in this compelling novel are pieced together from multiple viewpoints - among them, local villagers (some pro-Nazi, some not), their children, a British Red Cross worker, and various displaced persons left stranded by war. The novel asks the reader a number of important questions, all of which remain as relevant today as they were in 1945, about how we would behave in such circumstances. The novel also provides a fascinating insight into a period of the war, and a (predominantly German civilian’s) perspective on it, that is rarely explored. A thought-provoking, poignant and often unsettling read.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This starts off as a very interesting novel dealing with a part of the history of the Second World War that gets little coverage- what happened to the masses of displaced people around Europe immediately after the ending of hostilities. In this case, Rachel Seiffert deals with two particular concerns. Children who have been separated from their parents and are desperate to find them and Eastern Europeans who do not want to be repatriated to their countries that are now ruled by Stalin.
My problem with the novel that it loses much of its impact through being too long and having too many characters and storylines intertwined.