Jacob's Oath

by Martin Fletcher

As World War II winds to a close, Europe's roads are clogged with twenty million exhausted refugees walking home. Among them are Jacob and Sarah, lonely Holocaust survivors who meet in Heidelberg. But Jacob is consumed with hatred and cannot rest until he has killed his brother’s murderer, a concentration camp guard nicknamed "The Rat." Now he must choose between revenge and love, between avenging the past and building a future.

Martin Fletcher, who won the National Jewish Book Award for Walking Israel, proved his chops as a novelist with The List, which was selected as the One Book, One Jewish Community title for the city of Philadelphia. Now, Fletcher brings us another touching novel of love, loyalty, and loss, set in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Holocaust, War, Historical, Wwii Fiction

323 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2013

Reviews

[Martin Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish the author, that would be me, did a better job.

[Tina Galli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book through the Goodreads giveaway and received it yesterday (9/17/13) in the mail. I picked it up after finishing some school work and before I went to bed, had read half the book. Needless to say it was a fantastic storyline! It took me right in and did not let go. I finished the entire book in less than 24 hours. Very well researched, very good story. I will not spoil it but if you are looking for a truly enchanting read then this is it! Any lover of WWII and it's aftermath will not be disappointed. A truly enjoyable book. I have read now this book and also "The List" which I purchased on audible. Both books were magnificent reads about a post holocaust European world that most are unaware of.

[Ginna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good beginning and end. The middle was tedious and boring.

[Lisa Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of historical fiction I have read several novels set during the Holocaust. This book is different. It deals with the emotions of 2 survivors who meet in the immediate aftermath of WW II. An engaging story of love, loss, and revenge ensues... with many twists and turns along the way. Worth reading!

[Judie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just weeks before Germany surrendered in April 1945, Jacob Klein's young brother, Maxie, who was suffering from typhoid, was killed by a savage Nazi guard. As Maxie died, Jacob promised him would get revenge. As he prepared to leave Bergen-Belsen, Jacob saw the guard, Rat, walking out. He was in no position to follow him or keep his promise at that time but was determined to go to Heidelberg, where they both had lived, find Rat, and kill him.
Sarah Kaufman, also from Heidelberg, promised her lover, whom she planned to marry, that they would meet in Heidelberg after the war if they were still alive. She survived by being hidden by good Christians only to be attacked by one of the liberating Russian soldiers.
Though it was difficult, both Jacob and Sarah met in Heidelberg, the only two Jews to have returned by the end of May. They meet and fall in love.
Jacob keeps watching out for Rat to return so he can carry out his oath. Sarah is afraid if he does so he will be caught and arrested, thus ruining any chance of them having a future together.
While neither of them are aware of it, there is a Jewish Brigade hit team targeting former SS officers.
Moral questions form a large part of the plot: Is someone from whom everything was taken guilty for stealing items to survive from people who may or may not have personally stolen from him? Was violence ever the answer? If so, what about other family members who would be directly affected by the retaliation? What should people do if those in control, in this case the liberating army, do not differentiate between the victims and the perpetrators? What would be the effect of killing a few former brutal Nazis? Are there limits to promised, hatred, love? What future is there for Jewish survivors who return to their prewar homes? The characters explain the desperate need for personal, often sexual relationships among the survivors. However, I think it was too detailed and distracted from the main story.
Martin Fletcher raise an interesting concept: "We all live with delusion...; it's our best weapon of survival. If we don't delude ourselves about ourselves, how can we live with ourselves?" It is the foundation for much of the story.
JACOB'S OATH was a well-written, fast-paced novel with and O.Henry-like ending.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jacob's Oath by Martin Fletcher: One Reader's Review

It takes unspeakable fortitude and significant literary artistry to carry off a novel embedded -- including not only the plot but the very psyches of the characters -- temporally, geographically and thematically in the immediate aftermath of perhaps the most notorious program of genocide in human history, the Holocaust.***

What is quickly and increasingly clear to the reader -- thanks to Fletcher's sophisticated crafting of the text of this narrative -- is that after the complete subversion of Humanity and Life as principles and the eradication of so much of both as a matter of fact, these two hearty pillars can strangely enough be spotted again holding things up somehow in daily existence for the survivors. Indeed, sometimes human connection and the most normal and healthy rhythms of life are seen to emerge during or in absurd proximity to the most unusual and alienating situations the characters' face. This thematically significant pattern is exemplified by the love story, undermining from the outset our protagonist's vengeful project. which is used to frame the plot generally. Falling in love and settling down to raise a family arise naturally and beautifully as opportunities for change and growth in the protagonists'lives, but Jacob's entire existential project forbids such personally desirable and otherwise natural development.

To sum it up, Fletcher's writing supplies the emotional depth and sincerity, as well as the intellectual sophistication, to match well the intense issues inevitably raised by the novel's storyline. Seriously, the narration is pitch perfect throughout; this is a great novel.

Thank you for reading my ideas; I hope they prove somehow useful or somewhat entertaining. I would like to thank the author himself and St. Martin's Press via its Read-It-First newsletter, which gave me access to this great read -- first in the form a sizable excerpt emailed to me and later as a hard copy of the novel I won through a newsletter/excerpt-associated giveaway.

[Prima Seadiva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars. I listened to the audio version. George Guidall,one of the better readers around, was much better and did not use bad dialect accents as did the reader of the previous book by Fletcher, The List.
The story premise was interesting involving the trauma and readjustment to a post war Germany. The main characters return to their home city Heidelberg, Jacob from Bergen-Belsen and Sarah after hiding underground in Berlin. Both lost family members. Jacob swears to take vengeance for his brother on another resident of Heidelberg a concentration camp guard known as the Rat.

Jacob and Sarah meet fall in love and the story for me lost focus. It's not that love has no healing power but the focus became their romance until the end of the book where it switched back to vengeance,a different view and final twist. I won't reveal more as it would be a spoiler.
I was far more interested in how they were working to begin the healing process of being survivors in a world so changed and so much lost. Romance is only a part of that.
The time span of the book was roughly one month, barely a start on healing after years of trauma. It must have been a huge adjustment and taken years if not a lifetime. It would have been interesting to follow them and post war reconstruction for a longer period than a month.
Who knows maybe the author has more in mind.

[Alison Miller-astor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book. The plot is awesome -- what it's like as a European Jew to have survived the holocaust, and to go "home". The nagging survivor's guilt, the struggle to build some sort of life, finding love again, but running into constant reminders of the hate. The characters are also great -- Jacob, who survived Bergen-Belsen; Sarah, who survived as a "submarine" in Berlin, and Isak, a Russian Jew in the military (I loved this guy). However, in much of the book, the writing itself just made me crazy, as did the repetitiveness of Jacob struggling with his oath (not just the struggle, but the same words, over and over and over and over again). Still a worthy book to read, and I'm glad I read it. Just hard to award it more stars...

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book riveting from beginning to end, even better than Martin Fletcher's previous novel, The List. I've read quite a bit about WWII, including novels, memoirs, biography, and nonfiction. Where both of Fletcher's books differ from most of them is that his narratives begin at the end of the war and address the horrors that survivors face when the guns and bombs fall silent. It's over…but it's not over, not really. These people must begin again with nothing--not material goods, family, or belief in humanity. How did any of them manage to rebuild and move on? Jacob's Oath addresses this question authentically and with understanding.

I found this novel singularly worthwhile. It held my attention completely, and it helped me gain insight into situations and people that I have never, and will never, encounter personally. A book that can do that for me earns all five stars.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read many novels set during the Holocaust I can honestly say that Jacob's Oath was not my favorite although worth reading. This story is a little different. It focuses on the emotions and feelings of two survivors, Jacob and Sarah. Jacob seeks revenge for the death of his brother. Sarah searches for her lover who she hopes is alive as they promised to marry. This book could have been 3.5 stars for me however somewhere in the middle of the story the author wrote about the sexual desperation and tension between the young couple which I found distracting and lengthy. As with most Holocaust novels this story is sad and tragic and at times difficult to read. A few twists and turns and an interesting ending.

[Roberto Galindo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice plot, quick ending. Pretty accurate, historically. Nothing about the surround nature, as always. Pretty sexual but not necessarily vulgar. I like the German words throughout. Started with a great perspective on the females that suffered through the war but then diluted away to make it all about Jacob. Nice touch, though, to add a woman's side of the horror.

[Bluma Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book and story line from the ending of the holocaust. Will written. Excellent subplots. Jacob & Sarah the main characters in the story so well developed. The subplots that were happening simultaneously were fascinating. Fast reading

[Andrea Bolton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing story, brilliantly told, with wonderful characters. It will stay with me for a long time.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing story! Couldn't put it down. A totally different perspective on World War 2, and after the liberation of those who survived the Holocaust.

[Virginia Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book through the "First Impressions" program of Bookbrowse. This book is another Holocaust story but with a different twist. Instead of being focused on the horrible conditions Jacob Klein endured within a concentration camp or on the sub-human conditions faced by Sarah Kaufman who survived by hiding out for years fleeing from one safe house to another, this story is about these two Jews in the days immediately following the victories of the Allied armies. I believe the difficulties involved in trying to survive as free people who have lost everything have been pretty much overlooked in novels about this era. So the concept was intriguing for someone who loves historical fiction. The cover of the book announced that the author is a master storyteller, but I am sorry to report that it somehow seemed to lack true emotion and did not measure up to what I was anticipating.

I am not sure what it was lacking. In some ways, it seemed to be as if the author stands back and reports the facts without being invested in the characters being described. I never lost the feeling I was reading about these people rather than being enveloped and living in their shoes.

I would not recommend the book.

[Jodi Pomerleau · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook from the library. It started out great. It's post war Europe and the Jews have been released from the concentration camps. Jacob makes his way back home to avenge his brother's death at the hands of an SS guard who comes from the same town. And then....I had a very hard time with it. It was reduced to Jacob's sex life and his obsession with Hans..."should I or shouldn't I? If I try I will get caught. But I can't get caught. Should I knife him, club him, shoot him? Where. If I do, I will get caught. I made an oath. I must do it! But I'll lose Sarah!" And it went on and on and on and on like that. It got to be very annoying. The secondary story seemed out of place because I couldn't connect it with the main story Then when it finally did connect up, it fizzled, so what was the point of it? I really wanted to like this story, but it just did not resonate with me. If I had a printed version, it might have been better because I could have skimmed through those constant annoying inner dialogues that circled over and over again.

[Marc Cullison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had my doubts about this book, but once I began reading it, I found it hard to put it down. According to the acknowledgments in the book, the story is an accurate portrayal of the lives of two Jews during WWII. This is the kind of story you don't often read about. We're all familiar with the concentrations camps and the horrors inflicted on Jews by the Nazis, but this story takes it a step farther into the life of one Jew who had managed to evade the camps and spent her time hiding. The other escaped and sneaked through Nazi country to find his home. The atrocities they endure are nothing short of shocking and infuriating. An emotional book to say the least.

[Kassie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won an advanced copy of this book through the Goodreads giveaway. I don't normally go for books like this and usually read thrillers but I thought this sounded like an excellent story. I wasn't very happy with the book as a whole though. It seemed very rushed and while I liked the characters I feel as though there wasn't as much background as I would have liked. I feel like it's missing that magic that makes a book life changing. I did like it and I'm glad that I read it, but it wasn't a must-read and was only an okay read.

[Jeri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read "The List" by Fletcher which I thoroughly enjoyed, this book left me feeling that I missed something. Something was missing. Maybe it was the writing and the development of the characters. I liked the characters but I wanted to know more about them. This story should have been much better.

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best stories of the aftermath of World II for the surviving Jews. So sad and yet uplifting. The story makes for a gripping read from the beginning to end. The author gives us a chronicle of that time with wit and beautiful writing that offers both a moving love story and a terrific thriller. The ending is very unexpected.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't convinced initially, but the questions it raised--What do you do when you've been harmed? How should one handle anger? What will you do for someone else?--were interesting and worth the read.

[Glenda Light · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exploration of the Jewish postwar experience in Europe and the need for revenge and the need for love. I wanted to know more at the end - how did Jacob react? Where do they end up? What is the fathers story? The sexual content might limit my recommendation for some audiences.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into Jacob's Oath not really knowing what to expect. I wasn't familiar with the author, Martin Fletcher, and hadn't read his other novel, The List. Maybe now I should make a point of doing so. I went in with no expectations at all and was promptly blown away. It's amazing how perfectly he captured the camp survivor mentality without actually being one himself. There are so many books about the holocaust and camp life, but the immediate postwar era is often overlooked. This is also the first (fiction) book I've seen about the Avengers, a group of Jewish vigilantes who took justice into their own hands.

Against all odds, Jacob returns home to Heidelberg to fulfill a promise to his dying brother: kill Hans Seeler, the brutal SS guard who murdered him. In the hands of a less-talented author, this could have been a predictable thriller: all action and testosterone but no real depth. But Fletcher delicately balances the violence and mounting suspense with quiet, thought-provoking scenes you'd expect from any literary novel. He gives you an intimate look at Sarah and Jacob's psychology, and how they adjust to life after the war. You get a sense of the mental wounds they still have to recover from. The romance was beautiful and one of the best I've read in a while.

The atmosphere was easily one of my favorite things about the book. It sums up the miserable existence of life after the war. Bartering on the black market, camp survivors and refugees struggling to survive while German citizens prosper. I had no idea that Jewish concentration camp victims were treated no differently than regular Germans! The scenes with the Avengers were also very enjoyable. It was so satisfying to see them mete out justice to one nazi after another. They kind of disappear halfway into the book, and I was quite sad when they left.

The buildup to the climax was torturous. I had no idea how it would end and Fletcher really kept me guessing. Seeler's death wasn't quite what I expected, but it was still pretty karmic and well-written. And that twist about Jacob's father being alive, I would never have seen that coming in a million years! The little note at the end was especially disturbing. There were 1100 Jews in Heidelberg in 1939. By 1945 only 18 were left. The sense of loss is just completely unimaginable.

There are countless books about the holocaust, both fiction and nonfiction, but Jacob's Oath is one you absolutely must read. It's a touching and powerful examination of life after the holocaust.

[Patrice Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written story of 2 Jewish Holocaust survivors who meet in Germany just as the war ends in 1945. They respectively had returned to Heidelberg to find their families' homes taken over by German nationals, so the 2 strangers ended up sharing a bedroom in a private home until housing would come available after the various populations in Europe were replanted through population resettlement.

Their stories of how they each survived from 1939-45 are compelling (Jacob in Bergen-Belson; Sarah hiding "underground" in Berlin) but not emotionally overwrought. The culture of the immediate post-war period is completely uncovered: soldiers from the US, the UK, Germany, and the Soviet Union are still scattered over the cities and countryside, with no one army totally in charge. How Jacob & Sarah each got back to their home city is a saga in itself, but their relationship togther is a further exploration.

I learned a lot.

[Cristina Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read stories of events and the aftermath of these times as tragic as might be what extraordinary lives people have and live and are very brave. The insightful way this book details actions decisions and the depth of the turmoil is very profound with knowledge and ability to convey it all.

I get into the story cry and think in the deepest way and come away simply amazed at the heroics of people in war and after .

[Diane Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love is the most powerful force

A bitter-sweet story of post-WW II Germany and the lives of two Jewish survivors in particular. Sarah and Jacob had each suffered unimaginable pain during the war that changed them forever. This is a compelling story of how they found each other and how they tried to live again in Germany, while being confronted daily with the burdens of the past.

[Sandy]

If you're a lover of WWII historical fiction, and you enjoy the English countryside and its people, and are also an avid cook, then this book is for you. Its an easy read and moves along quickly. There’s some love story thrown in, as well as enough painful relationships to keep it all interesting and not sickly sweet. For those reasons and the masterful writing style, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to read more from this author.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the war comes to an end, Jacob seeks to get his revenge on the prison guard that killed his brother. What Jacob doesn’t expect is that he will find someone else who will make his decision to act out his revenge difficult.

Interesting perspective in post war Germany as things settle into a new normal.

[Brenda Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book that made me think about revenge and the fine line between right and wrong. The story moves quickly as the characters develop and you get to know them. The book is well written and very interesting. I loved the storyline and learned a few new things about living in post-war Germany.

[C.J. Anderson-Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the author has let go a perfect opportunity to deal with the dilemma during the reconstruction of the society when victims and perpetrators need to work together.

But it is a successful work.