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A review by pan_to_ffel
Aimée & Jaguar: Eine Liebesgeschichte, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer
4.0
Summary
This book is based on a true story and my copy does contain a lot of photos, documents and letters of that time.
The story is set in 1943 in Nazi Germany. It evolves around two women who couldn’t possibly be more different. On the one hand there is Lilly Wust, unburdened, naive, married to a german soldier, mother and housewife and on the other hand there is Felice Schragenheim, brave, ballsy, snappy, out of the closet lesbian and above all...a jewish woman desperately trying to survive in Nazi Germany. While Lilly (Aimée) is not satisfied with her life and her husband, she tries to be the perfect german housewife. One day Lilly and Felice meet and it’s almost love at first sight. They date and court each other, writing love poems and letters and even negotiate a marriage contract. All this time Lilly doesn’t know that Felice is jewish until she tells her this secret. But instead of leaving her, the bond between them grows even tighter than before. Unfortunately their love story is set to a dramatic end when Felice is arrested on august 21th 1944.
Review
I read this book some years ago but I still remember how deeply moved I was. I did know about the Nazis and what happend at that time but noone ever really talked about homosexuals during that period and I might have guessed what it was like but I didn’t know anything for sure except that it was forbidden. Well, the book changed that.
I was amazed by Felice because she was such a powerful and brave woman. I admired that they dared to fall in and live their love under these dangerous circumstances. They did everyday things like picknick or going out...It must have been a beautiful time for both of them as long as they forgot where they were...
But the story also made me cry really hard when it came down to arresting Felice. From this moment on I couldn’t stand Lilly anymore. She desperately tried to find Felice and even tried to visit her one time at Theresienstadt, bringing all the attention to Felice whilst doing this. One doesn’t know what happend to Felice, she might have survived, but it’s more likely she died on one of the death marches.
The book was filmed as a movie too, starring Maria Schrader (Felice) and Juliane Koehler (Lilly). But I’m not sure wether it was dubbes/subtitled into english or wether it was just published in german.
This book is based on a true story and my copy does contain a lot of photos, documents and letters of that time.
The story is set in 1943 in Nazi Germany. It evolves around two women who couldn’t possibly be more different. On the one hand there is Lilly Wust, unburdened, naive, married to a german soldier, mother and housewife and on the other hand there is Felice Schragenheim, brave, ballsy, snappy, out of the closet lesbian and above all...a jewish woman desperately trying to survive in Nazi Germany. While Lilly (Aimée) is not satisfied with her life and her husband, she tries to be the perfect german housewife. One day Lilly and Felice meet and it’s almost love at first sight. They date and court each other, writing love poems and letters and even negotiate a marriage contract. All this time Lilly doesn’t know that Felice is jewish until she tells her this secret. But instead of leaving her, the bond between them grows even tighter than before. Unfortunately their love story is set to a dramatic end when Felice is arrested on august 21th 1944.
Review
I read this book some years ago but I still remember how deeply moved I was. I did know about the Nazis and what happend at that time but noone ever really talked about homosexuals during that period and I might have guessed what it was like but I didn’t know anything for sure except that it was forbidden. Well, the book changed that.
I was amazed by Felice because she was such a powerful and brave woman. I admired that they dared to fall in and live their love under these dangerous circumstances. They did everyday things like picknick or going out...It must have been a beautiful time for both of them as long as they forgot where they were...
But the story also made me cry really hard when it came down to arresting Felice. From this moment on I couldn’t stand Lilly anymore. She desperately tried to find Felice and even tried to visit her one time at Theresienstadt, bringing all the attention to Felice whilst doing this. One doesn’t know what happend to Felice, she might have survived, but it’s more likely she died on one of the death marches.
The book was filmed as a movie too, starring Maria Schrader (Felice) and Juliane Koehler (Lilly). But I’m not sure wether it was dubbes/subtitled into english or wether it was just published in german.