Louise Bellingham never signed up for a war.
Finally free from her stuffy English boarding school, the fearless and fun-loving Louise is eager to embrace her future. But after she returns home to find Paris under Nazi occupation, she’s quickly dragged into a war that she wants no part in.
Reluctantly plunged into the secretive and dangerous world of the French Resistance, her hopes of fun and excitement are crushed beneath the grueling realities of war. And when she meets the young, handsome Nazi officer Hans, Louise becomes increasingly torn between her loyalty to her family and her newfound feelings for the charming officer.
As tensions rise and emotions threaten to boil over, Louise realizes she won’t be able to ignore the war forever – and when she stumbles upon the horrifying truth behind the Nazi occupation, she’ll be forced to question her deepest beliefs and take a stand for what’s right.
Step into a gritty and authentic historical fiction novel that captures your imagination with larger-than-life characters and thrilling historical details. Not My War is a page-turning read that focuses on the lesser-known stories of the brave men and women who fought in Nazi-occupied France.
Louise Bellingham never signed up for a war.
Finally free from her stuffy English boarding school, the fearless and fun-loving Louise is eager to embrace her future. But after she returns home to find Paris under Nazi occupation, she’s quickly dragged into a war that she wants no part in.
Reluctantly plunged into the secretive and dangerous world of the French Resistance, her hopes of fun and excitement are crushed beneath the grueling realities of war. And when she meets the young, handsome Nazi officer Hans, Louise becomes increasingly torn between her loyalty to her family and her newfound feelings for the charming officer.
As tensions rise and emotions threaten to boil over, Louise realizes she won’t be able to ignore the war forever – and when she stumbles upon the horrifying truth behind the Nazi occupation, she’ll be forced to question her deepest beliefs and take a stand for what’s right.
Step into a gritty and authentic historical fiction novel that captures your imagination with larger-than-life characters and thrilling historical details. Not My War is a page-turning read that focuses on the lesser-known stories of the brave men and women who fought in Nazi-occupied France.
The smile on my face froze as an ear-splitting crack resounded from across the street.
A gunshot?
Instinctively, I put my hands over my ears, feeling the familiar panic rise up in my throat. Desperately trying to calm my jagged breaths, I told myself to breathe as I pushed away the memory.
You’re fine, you’re fine. No need to panic.
It had been seven years, but I just couldn’t shake off the nightmares. Sudden loud bangs always had a tendency to set me off.
Bringing myself back to the present, I looked across the street to see a group of young men in brown shirts hurling bricks and stones at a shop window.
“What’s going on?” I asked my handsome companion.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
But then, as we watched, an old man—presumably the shopkeeper—was dragged out of the shop. As the men started punching and kicking him, I turned away and put my hands over my face in horror.
Make them stop! I wanted to say. Why don’t you make them stop?
I didn’t say that out loud, though. I was too concerned about looking grown up and sophisticated. But still, I wanted to know why it was happening, in broad daylight, with no one stopping to help the shopkeeper, who was now moaning in distress as he lay curled up on the ground.
“Why are they doing that?”
“Why? Well, he’s a Jew, of course,” said Hans with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and kept walking. It was none of my concern, and I wasn’t about to let this little incident spoil my day—a day that was rapidly turning out to be the best in my entire life. Here I was, seventeen years old, walking along the magnificent streets of Munich next to the most attractive man I’d ever laid eyes on. Even in this city, teeming as it was with tall blond Nazi soldiers, in my eyes, Hans stood out like a god.
We had only met a few minutes ago. It was my summer vacation, and I had been invited to spend a month in Munich with my schoolmate Emma while her parents vacationed there. Today, the two of us had come into the city by tram to see an art exhibition. Emma, who had a passion for art, had begged me to come, not that it was necessary to beg. Just to be away from school and teachers, to be in this beautiful, vibrant city without supervision, made me feel giddy with excitement and expectation.
Munich was ablaze with red swastika flags hanging from every public building, a startling contrast to the paleness of the blue sky. The sun was warm on my face, the streets were thronging with soldiers and civilians, and I had never felt so alive.
“I so wish I lived here!” I said to Emma as we approached the exhibition.
“Me, too!” she answered. “But I’m starting to think that anywhere in the world would be preferable to living in that miserable English boarding school of ours.”
She had a point.
“The Degenerate Art Show” was being held in a building in the Hofgarten park. There was a long queue to get in; from what Emma had told me, the exhibition had been opened by Herr Hitler himself and was supposed to show us the evils of modern art—degenerate because it was an insult to all things German, apparently posing a dire threat to German culture and society. But we were supposed to make up our own minds, Emma said. I knew little about art—little about much of anything, to tell the truth—but didn’t at all mind spending an hour or so at the exhibition, especially when there were so many handsome Aryans to admire.
The display of artwork, oddly and crookedly placed on the walls of the dark and narrow rooms, was distinctly unsettling.
“Why doesn’t someone straighten them out?” I asked Emma in a whisper.
She put her finger to her lips as if to tell me to be quiet, shook her head, and went back to writing notes on her little pad.
And why aren’t any of them in proper frames? I wanted to ask. But didn’t.
Stranger still, labels that looked like they’d been written by children were pinned to the walls. My goodness, if I handed in anything that sloppy to my teachers, I’d be in big trouble.
“Nature as seen by sick minds,” read one. “Grotesque art,” said another. Most of the artists were Jewish.
Soon enough, I realized the slogans were telling me what I was supposed to think. One particular painting caught my eye, showing elegant ladies with fur collars in vibrantly clashing purples and pinks. “Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Street, Berlin, 1913” read the label. “Purchased with the taxes of working German people by the National Gallery in 1920, for twelve thousand German marks.”
Smiling to myself, I understood that I wasn’t supposed to like this painting because of how much it had cost German taxpayers. Wondering how other people were reacting, I turned around to make instant eye contact with the most handsome man I’d ever seen. His gray-green uniform emphasized the blueness of his eyes, which crinkled around the corners as he smiled at me. I took in his even features, strong jawline, and golden blond hair and lost all interest in the artwork around me. Probably in his early twenties, I thought. Not too old for me at all.
Turning back as nonchalantly as I could to the paintings, I nudged Emma with my elbow, wanting her to see him for herself.
“What?” she asked with a frown. “Just let me write this down.”
But when I turned around again, my dreamboat Aryan had disappeared. Trailing along behind my friend, I surreptitiously pulled my compact out of my handbag and touched up my red lipstick. Another coating of mascara was needed, but that was too hard to do with so many people around. But I did manage to comb my hair, wishing I’d worn my pink dress rather than this blue flowered print. With puff sleeves, a large collar, and a white leather belt around the waist, the blue was pretty enough, I supposed. Fashionable, too, but not exactly sensational. Not that I was ever likely to see Mr. Dreamboat again amongst all these hoards of art lovers. Art haters, rather.
By the time Emma had seen her fill, I was so anxious to get out into the fresh air that I stepped through the exit door at a gallop, straight into a solid gray-green wall with brass buttons.
“Excuse me, please. I am so sorry,” said my Mr. Dreamboat, stepping back politely.
I looked into those deep blue eyes for the second time that day and was lost for words. Quite unusual for me.
“Don’t mind, my friend,” said Emma. “She’s always clumsy!”
He laughed, then clicked his heels and bowed. “Hans Hartmann. At your service. And this is my friend Peter.”
“I’m Louise,” I said, recovering myself. I was going to add that everyone called me Lulu but held my tongue. I wanted to appear refined, elegant, worldly; Lulu was a little girl’s name. “And this is Emma. Not so much my friend anymore, after that insult!”
“What did you think of the exhibition?” Hans asked. “Incredible, isn’t it! Listen, we were just going for coffee. Would you care to join us?”
Would we! One glance at Emma confirmed that we would indeed, and from there, it just seemed natural for me to be walking by his side as he started talking about the evils of expressionism and impressionism. When he paused to ask me my opinion, I was flummoxed.
“Forgive me, but German isn’t my first language,” I said. “You lost me there.” That wasn’t quite true because I was fluent in German and understood every word he said. I just didn’t want to admit how ignorant I was about art.
“You’re not German?” he asked in surprise. “I just presumed because you speak the language so well. Where are you from?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer,” I said. “I was born in Switzerland. My father was English, my mother is German, and I’ve spent most of my life at boarding schools in England. But my mother lives in Paris, so I suppose that’s home for me. For now, anyway.”
With Emma and Peter close behind, we walked through along the paths of the neatly manicured Englischer Garten and admired the Chinese Tower, which Hans said had been built in the 1700s. And as we passed people picnicking and sunbathing on the grassy banks of the stream, I couldn’t resist the allure of that beautiful blue water.
“Emma!” I turned around and pulled her by the hand. “We have to put our feet in! Come on, let’s go for a paddle!”
“No, I don’t want to get my stockings wet!” she said.
“We’ll take them off, then. Come on!” I laughed and pulled her toward the water. “Hans, Peter, will you come?”
Hans stiffened as a frown creased his forehead. “We’re in uniform, Louise. It would be against the rules.” But then his frown relaxed into a smile, and as he and Peter sat on the grass, Emma and I ran to the water’s edge, peeled off our knee-high stockings, and stepped into the clear, cold water, where we held onto each other, shrieking with joy. It was short-lived. After a couple of minutes, our feet started to turn numb, and we sat on the bank to dry off our feet.
“Time for coffee now, I think,” said Hans once we were back in our shoes. He led the way out of the park, and that’s when the disturbing incident with the shopkeeper occurred.
“I am sorry you had to witness that,” he said, holding out his arm. I took his elbow, basking in the glory of it all. I felt I must have been the envy of every girl in Munich to be walking arm-in-arm with this man. Suddenly realizing he was talking, I tried to pay attention to his words.
“As our Fuhrer says, the mightiest threat to the Aryan race is the Jew. God created Aryans as perfect men, both physically and spiritually. If we die off, the world will become a dark and desolate place indeed.”
Desolate indeed, I thought, smiling up at him. He seemed so tall, even though I myself was wearing two-inch heels.
“Jews are ungodly and inhuman,” Mr. Dreamboat continued. “They are the embodiment of evil and create disorder. As such, they have to be eliminated.”
I wondered briefly if I knew anyone who was Jewish. I thought of the girls in my class at school and wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what Jews looked like. Perhaps some of our teachers are Jewish, I thought, then decided that the headmistress was almost certainly Jewish because she was evil. Well, evil toward me, at any rate.
Hans continued talking on the same topic, while I only gave him half an ear until he stopped outside a café. The four of us sat at a table outside in the shadow of a huge swastika flag that fluttered gaily over the sidewalk while Hans ordered coffees.
As I tried to sip daintily on the strong, bitter brew, Emma asked if they were off to fight in a war somewhere.
“We’re being mobilized first thing tomorrow morning,” Hans replied. “We don’t know where we’re going yet—that’s top secret!”
“How exciting!” I said. “I wish I could go!”
“It will be my first time away from home, so I have to admit I’m a little anxious,” said Peter. “But we’ve been training for years with Hitler Youth, so we’re well prepared to fight for the Fatherland.”
Fight who? I wondered.
“No need to be anxious, Peter,” said Hans, making me jump as he thumped his fist on the table. “This is the start of the thousand-year Reich. Our duty to the Fuhrer is clear!”
“Heil Hitler!” said Peter in response, raising his arm in the Nazi salute. I noticed that this seemed to be the way people in Munich greeted each other, even when passing on the street.
Emma said that we needed to get home before her parents started to worry, and we stood up to say our goodbyes to our new friends.
“I’m sorry I have to leave tomorrow,” said Hans. “But who knows? Maybe I will find myself in Paris one day. Maybe we’ll meet again!”
A comment which I didn’t take at all seriously at the time but which came back to haunt me in later years. It seemed that we were destined to meet, one way or another, he and I.
“They’re very intense, aren’t they?” said Emma of the soldiers as we hurried arm-in-arm toward the tram stop.
“Yes. Fierce, in fact,” I replied. “Not to mention incredibly handsome! But I wouldn’t want to make an enemy out of those boys, that’s for sure.”
Louise Bellingham only wanted to live a carefree lifestyle. She'd been thrown out of several boarding schools due to her behavior; she didn't care about academic success. She wanted to taste champagne, eat fine food, dance at bistros, listen to fine music, even if she had to live at home with her mother and her brother, who was affected by a traumatic experience--having witnessed the assassination of their father.
At the novel's beginning, Louise and her friend Emma are visiting Munich, where they meet the exceptionally handsome German soldier/Hitler youth member Hans. Louise is quite taken with Hans--bowled over might be a better description--and she never forgets how perfect his looks are. He does make disparaging remarks about Jews, and they watch a Jewish shopkeep being beaten up by Nazis. Hans basically approves of this beating, which confuses Louise.
Then there was this war...With heartless, white supremacist Nazis who stopped at nothing to further the Aryan race. Louise and her family thought they were safe, until Hitler invaded France, plastered the Nazi flag all over Paris, including on the Eiffel Tower, enacted strict laws and curfews, and controlled the people within France's borders. And they were rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps.
Louise originally secured a job at a local store and lasted only a couple of weeks. Then she decided to get a job at a bar, where many Jewish intellectuals and people who had escaped from other Nazi-occupied countries had previously gathered. Once the Nazis occupied France, however, those people had to leave, and the hotel in which the bar was located was taken over by German soldiers and commandants.
Louise has the advantage that she speaks several languages--German, French and English. She and her friends keep serving the Nazis who frequent the bar, while simultaneously the people of Paris suffer from rationing and food shortages. Meanwhile, the Nazis have a surplus of food and aren't anxious to share anything. Imagine Louise's surprise when her teenage crush Hans shows up as an officer in the German army, and he begins to wine and dine her while her mother and brother are losing weight and essentially starving.
She falls deeply in love with Hans and sees a long-term future with him. Her friends warn her that he's an evil Nazi, but she's blinded by love for her "perfect" German soldier. He's so handsome, so perfect, so...She loses her friends, including her friend Emma, who has come over from England to take care of her aunt in Paris. People won't speak to Louise; she doesn't understand it. "You don't know him!" she insists.
It's complicated. She simply doesn't know what's she's getting into. Until she does.
I enjoyed this book for the most part, and I think the author did an admirable job of describing the philosophical dilemma this young girl faces as she is manipulated in many ways by a man who seems perfect on the surface but who has so many flaws related in his hatred of Jewish and other non-Aryan people. He tells her what to do, he orders food for her, he tells her what wine/champagne to drink. What kind of life would she have had with him had she not seen the light?
The one thing that bothered me about this book is the writer's overuse of exclamation points in dialogue. I know it's a little picky, but every statement isn't an exclamation. Beyond that, I found no typos and no grammatical errors. This is the kind of historical fiction I like to read, but I could have done with a few less exclamations!