Kommandant's Girl / The Diplomat's Wife

The Kommandant's Girl #1-2

by Pam Jenoff

The Kommandant's GirlEmma Bau has only been married three weeks when the Nazis invade her native Poland. After her husband is forced underground as part of a resistance movement, Emma soon finds herself imprisoned in the ghetto with her parents. There she meets one of the resistance leaders with his help, she is able to escape and live under an assumed, non-Jewish identity.Emma's already precarious situation is complicated when she meets Kommandant Georg Richwalder a Nazi official who insists that Emma come to work for him.Desperately, Emma wrestles with questions of loyalty and duty until at last she is able to locate information sought by the resistance movement unleashing a chain of events that will change Emma's life, and the lives of those she loves, forever.Also includes - The Diplomat's Surviving the brutality of a Nazi prison camp, Marta Nederman is lucky to have escaped with her life. Recovering from the horror, she meets Paul, an American soldier who gives her hope of a happier future. But their plans to meet in London are dashed when Paul's plane crashes.Devastated and pregnant, Marta marries Simon, a caring British diplomat and glimpses the joy that home and family can bring. But her happiness is threatened when she learns of a Communist spy in British intelligence, and that the one person who can expose the traitor is connected to her past.

Genres: Historical Fiction, World War II

Paperback

First published October 1, 2008

About the author

Pam is the author of several novels, including her most recent The Woman With The Blue Star, as well as The Lost Girls of Paris and The Orphan's Tale, both instant New York Times bestsellers. Pam was born in Maryland and raised outside Philadelphia. She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Cambridge University in England. Upon receiving her master’s in history from Cambridge, she accepted an appointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. The position provided a unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government, including helping the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims secure their memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, observing recovery efforts at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and attending ceremonies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II at sites such as Bastogne and Corregidor.

Following her work at the Pentagon, Jenoff moved to the State Department. In 1996 she was assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland. It was during this period that Pam developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust. Working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland, Jenoff developed close relations with the surviving Jewish community.

Having left the Foreign Service in 1998 to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania, Jenoff practiced law at a large firm and in-house for several years. She now teaches law school at Rutgers.

Reviews

[Friedlander Heidi]

The title says it all for me. The main character views herself from the perspective of the men in her life. She uses poor judgement and makes poorly thought out decisions that were not believable to me while responding without impact in other (heart breaking) circumstances. The audiobook reader was a bit sniveling (not a word i get to use every day but do appropriate here). Great premise. Poorly executed.

[Luba]

4.5

[Merry Greene]

Interesting book...probably a 3.5. I am enjoying this author.

[Danial Tanvir]

after a long time i have read a novel as well written and interesting as this one and i could not put it down.
it is actually based in september 1939.
it is about an nineteen year old jewish girl.
her name is emma bau.
she is from poland and she lives in poland.
what happens next is that poland is attacked by germany and there is chaos and madness every where. she then gets married to a man called jacob and after six weeks of their marriage , he has to flee.
there are details given about the war.
she becomes a christian and makes a new identity as anna lipowski.
she then becomes the secretary to the kommandant richwalder.
she does this to gain the love and support of him and so that she can get the secrets from him about what was going to happen to the jewish people.
he starts trusting her and falls in love with her and starts taking her out on dates and gives her presents and she feels as if she is cheating on her real husband who is jacob.
she then goes to his apartment and finds out all the secrets that she is supposed to find out.
she makes up a new identity as another girl.
she is against what he is doing and she does not want him to find out that what she is up to and that who she really is.
she then finally meets jacob after a long time and she is happy to meet him , she thinks that he must have found another women and forgotten about her.
the kommandant richwalder is in love and wants to marry her .
she then gets pregnant and she knows whoes child it is.
an explosion happens but jacob is still alive.
the kommandant richwalder then finds out that she is jewish and her true identity and then he is heart broken and he tries to kill her but is killed himself.
she then meets her love who is jacob and thats how this lovely novel ends!..

[Kim]

The 2nd book of Pam Jenoff's that I have read. This is a story of love that cannot be which takes place during the Polish Resistance. The main character, a young newly wed Jewish girl becomes involved with a Nazi officer as she accepts a job in his office to hopefully find information which could help the Resistance group in which her husband is involved. Things become complicated and risky. Though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I think I preferred the first Jenoff novel that I read The Orphan's Tale.

[Mariana]

I love reading historical fiction from WWII but unfortunately this was a DNF for me. The summary was captivating but the writing style wasn’t strong to make this a convincing and compelling story to finish... I don’t think it did the time period justice! Still glad I picked it up. I just wanted it to be more!

[Sara]

This was a page turner, but I had a lot of problems with it. For one, I find it impossibly difficult to believe a Jewish woman would EVER have real feelings for a Nazi. Sure, her internal struggle with this is highlighted, but the number of times she mentions real feelings and affection, how she HELD him when he died… there’s just no way!! That ruined it for me…

[Cheryl Graves]

Loved The Kommandant's Girl! My heart was racing throughout. Be careful not to judge too harshly, what would you have done in her shoes...choices meant life or death. Pam Jenoff has become a new favorite author, good book to discuss in a group setting.

[Melissa Michaud]

Really enjoyed this book. I love historical fiction. Good characters, good story line.

[Shelly]

I haven't rear a Pam Jenoff book I didn't love.

[Camilla]

I couldn’t put this book down. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an easy read.

[Alanna Spinrad]

Good read. Kept me entertained.

[Tiffany]

Both these books are amazing! Tie into each other like I wouldn’t expect! Loved them both! The second one I just finished and there was surprising twists that I didn’t see initially! Very good!

[Paige Howell]

It kept my attention but nothing fantastic about it. I also did not like the ending.

[Jordie]

Great book, great story, great depiction of the time it’s set.

[Nancy]

Great story!

[Evelyn]

I read the Diplomat's Wife (not sure why this is listed as a twosome). It was very good with lots of twists and turns.

[Tiney Rahilly]

Returned early. I had read the others in the series so I knew what was supposed to happen. And it otherwise wasn’t good enough to keep

[Debbie]

I only read The Kommandant's Girl

[Wanda Mcguire]

This was a fast moving story of one young womans' sacrifice during the Nazi occupation of Poland. In helping the Resistance, how many people will she loose?

[Teal Tiller]

Wow. These were difficult to put down. So suspenseful. Heavy content for sure but put me into that time in history and made me want to keep reading!

[Disha Thakur]

The Diplomat's Wife is Very poorly written with no in depth study of the characters . This story came out to be such a big disappointment heights of predictable sequences It seems like as if it is a fan fiction by a school going kid . Kommandant's Girl is way better than The diplomat's wife. Anna's character was so strong till the last chapter you are unsure regarding what is going to happen next and on the other hand The Diplomat's Wife the writing seemed somewhat flat, and I found myself skim-reading and skipping lines without meaning to . Sequel of such a good story revolving around Marta ??? lol from where the hell she came in I'm unable to understand then falling in love with an american soldier just like that in a blink .....ride in a boat ...then rainfall, then in the middle of nowhere they were like hey look there is a gardener's shed then sharing a blanket then out of sudden Rose is going to die and look what she left behind VISA and it's expiring tomorrow so you have to leave today only and what not . where the hell this story is going . Please give me a break I can't take this any more . A big headache and a bigger disappointment .

[Stephanie]

Really good holocaust style book. My first time to read this era and I was drawn to the character easily. Then again, my favorite kind of stories are survival and suspense. "The Diplomat's Wife" is more of a book "could-be-movie-starring-Ben-Afleck" style.

[Debbie Bentman]

I recommend this book. It was slightly predictable by it definitely keeps your attention

[Charlotte]

I should be reading "what is the what" :) but I like a bit of romance.

[Alena]

Only read Kommandant's Girl so far but I loved it. If you love a lovestory and a second world war this is the book you need to read!

[Jerilyn]

loved it

[Karen Berg]

Both books were fantastic! You need to read the Kommandant's Girl first. The books were very powerful.

[Shylee]

The Kommadant's Girl and The Diplomat's Wife are really good books. I've read both of them twice and would gladly read them again. :)