The Secret Jew of Munich: The heart-breaking suspenseful WW2 story of a young girl who hides from the Nazis by living in Munich with the Nazis

by Kevin Paul Woodrow

A beautiful story of wartime survival, this is the romantic love story about a young Austrian Jewish girl who survives WWII by hiding from the Nazis whilst living amongst them in Hitler’s Munich.There was a knock on the door of the apartment. She looked through the spyglass to see two Gestapo officers standing there. What did they want, had they come for her? Had she been discovered after all this time? Was she about to lose everything, including her life?Rebecca was a beautiful teenager with many friends who loved her. However, for her, life as a young Austrian woman would change dramatically when her country was invaded by the Nazis, resulting in Austria being annexed on the 11th of March 1938.The problem for Rebecca was that even though her family were not at all religious, her papers contained the word “Juden.” This word alone was enough to make her life impossible, for in the eyes of the Nazis, as a Jew she was the enemy.Her friends rallied, all wanting to help. Her best friend was an artist and he made fake papers for her by copying those of another friend, but the two girls could not live in the same city, Vienna.For this reason, Rebecca moves to live with her friend’s relations, in of all places, Munich, the birth place of the Nazis. Here she will spend the entire war years hiding from the Nazis by living amongst them whilst working and socialising with them – all the time hiding in plain sight.

254 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 26, 2021

Reviews

[Carolyn Scarcella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m reading a remarkable story book that is new releases this June. This is on a true story that is called “The Secret Jew of Munich” by Kevin Paul Woodrow. This book is very captivating, unbearable, and it was very hard not to put the book down. It is another excellent p.o.v, about the other side of German people who were the Mayer friends of Jewish Cohens family during the ww2. It shows and tell us good German were not fans of Hitler. Rebecca grew up in Vienna, Austria. Her best friend Lars Bauer, a boy. When the Nazis invaded Austria. Her mum and her sister fled to England on kinder-transport. Lars has to make a fake identity for Rebecca to go into hiding in Munich as Christina and work as a nurse. Once she becomes a nurse, she romantically involved with Dr. Karl, a good German man. The story is a real eye opener because it’s riveting and fast paced packed adrenaline. The story has got me engage from the fist sentence to the end sentence because this could be neither YA of adults.

[Graham Speers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story line

Whilst the story was interesting enough, although the ending was very obvious, the quality of the writing was a little basic at best!

[Kaajal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rest of the book’s title reads “The unforgettable, heartbreaking WW2 story of a young girl who hides from the Nazis by living with the Nazis”. Who can resist a title like that. I always wondered why something like this didn’t happen and here’s a story telling me it did.

Rebecca was a young woman when the Nazis invaded and took over Austria. Through a miracle of fate and the help of some very good friends, her mother and sister manage to escape to England. These same friends rally around to make Rebecca hide in plain sight.

One friend is an artist and creates false papers for her. Another friend lends her name and identity to Rebecca who will not be known as Christina. But since they can’t risk being in the same city, her friends arrange for their relatives in Munich to host Rebecca in her Christian avatar.

For the rest of the war, she will live and behave like someone the Nazis are happy to associate with. She is befriended by a Nazi officer, by some nurses who are Naz supporters and a Doctor who is part of the Nazi party.

She faces a lot of inner turmoil to maintain her false identity. She has no way to know if her family is safe. War is everywhere. In the midst of all that, she finds herself having affections for the doctor. How will she manage and what will happen if she decides to tell him the truth?

Other than the actual writing of this book - it feels like the author’s first language is not English and he repeats some things just a few too many times; the story is one of triumph. Every Jew faced different demons in the war. None are less or more.