Those Who Save Us
An estranged mother and daughter reunite to confront their family's role in World War II in this harrowing, unforgettable novel about lost love and inherited shame.
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor of German history, begins investigating the past and finally unearths the dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life.
Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation of life during the war, and a poignant mother-daughter drama, Jenna Blume's Those Who Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure to survive.
The winner of the 2005 Ribalow Prize, awarded by Hadassah Magazine and adjudged by Elie Wiesel.
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JENNA BLUM is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of novels Those Who Save Us, The Stormchasers, and The Lost Family; novella “The Lucky One” in the collection Grand Central; audio course The Author At Work: The Art of Writing Fiction; World War II audiodrama The Key Of Love, available on all major streaming platforms; and memoir Woodrow on the Bench, about her senior black Lab and what he taught her.
Jenna is one of Oprah’s Top Thirty Women Writers, with her work published in over 20 countries, and cofounder/CEO of online author platform A Mighty Blaze. Jenna’s New York Times and internationally bestselling debut,Those Who Save Us, won the Ribalow Prize, awarded by Hadassah Magazine and adjudged by Elie Wiesel; Jenna interviewed Holocaust survivors for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Foundation for five years. Those Who Save Us was also a Borders pick and the number one bestselling book in Holland. The Stormchasers was a Target pick and featured in French Elle; the bestselling The Lost Family was an Indienext pick and received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. Woodrow on the Bench was an Indienext pick and Midwestern Booksellers’ Association bestseller.
Jenna is a public speaker, traveling nationally and internationally to talk about her work; she has visited over 800 book clubs in the Boston area alone. She now visits with readers both in person and online.
Jenna is based in Boston, where she earned her M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University and taught fiction and journalism there while being the fiction editor of AGNI Magazine; she has taught fiction, novel, and marketing for writers at Grub Street Writers and various conferences and institutions for over 20 years. For more information about Jenna, please visit her website, www.jennablum.com, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
ADVANCE PRAISE FORTHOSE WHO SAVE US
"In her compelling first novel, Jenna Blum forces a moral re-evaluation on her characters and on the reader. Cagily plotted between past and present, guilt and innocence, Those Who Save Us is a moving, unsentimental page turner." --ALISON LESLIE GOLD, a u t h o r o f F I E T ' S VASE and ANNEFRANK REMEMBERED ( w i t h M I E P G I E S )
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