Three different characters from different countries with different beliefs whose lives come together in 1942, who manage to find solace through hope and love. 15-year old Elsi, barely surviving in the Jewish ghetto of Lodz, with her mother and sister, scared of betrayal and being sent to "work" camp, like her father. Her mother has sold herself to the German masters to keep her family safe, becoming pregnant and trying to self-terminate the pregnancy. Elsi takes to the medical center where she meets a caring Nazi doctor, Willem, whose father is a senior Nazi official. Willem raised in a home without love, has married Lena, who has helped him find a purpose in life. Finally, 9-year old blonde-haired, blue-eyed Matilda is taken from her family in Romania by the Nazis, to be "Germanized," subjected to horrors in a German orphanage, with younger children and older girls, impregnated by German soldiers. Heart-rending. The second half was better than the first. ( )

A book you won't forget. ( )

Moving Story

I was moved by this story for so many reasons. The author does a great job with character development and we could see those nuances of a person in Elsi, Matilda and Willem.
Reading about experiences during the Holocaust is never easy to do because they are so horrific.

This story is no exception (it is fictional though). There are times when you want to stop reading but you keep going because you know these things happened and people survived.

In this story, we want Elsi and Matilda to survive. There are times that I myself praising their actions and also being disappointed in their actions. But that is a testament to the authors ability - I was connected to the characters.

Willem was another story. I was so frustrated with him throughout. But it's always interesting to read the other side of the story as well.
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Three main characters mesh together a story of war: Elsie, a Jewish girl fighting with the resistance; Matilda, a Eimanian youth forced from her home to be a part of the “pure” German race; and Willem, a high-ranking German doctor determined to help as most as he can. When Hitler ransacks Europe in pursuit of a pure German race, these three lives will be thrown together in unexpected ways. ( )

This book started very well and I enjoyed how the narrative was shared between Elsi, Willem and Matilda. They were all intelligent, generous people who came from vastly different backgrounds, but fate and the horrors of the Nazi regime brought them, unexpectedly, together. Whilst I found Elsi and Matilda's stories interesting, it was Willem's that really captured my attention. He was a complex character and even though, as a high ranking Nazi doctor, he took part in the medical sterilisations at Auschwitz, he was basically a kind man with a conscience, and tried to atone for his mistakes.

I was enjoying "Broken Angels" until about three-quarters of the way through when the characters who I had regarded as broken angels became avengers, seeing their own justice. It wasn't believable and spoilt the book. The ending was rushed and too tidy. However, I did like Matilda's final letter. Overall, a good, but not great, novel set against the backdrop of World War II. ( )