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| Ellie Midwood, Author THE GIRL FROM BERLIN |
Ellie Midwood created her unique novel set in Nazi Germany, THE GIRL FROM BERLIN, to tell an entertaining story and also to depict everyday life during this period and what it took to survive. She thoroughly researched the events and personal lives of the people in Nazi Germany to tell "a story of an SS Officer, his Jewish wife, and their fight against the Reich." She assures us
that she lightens her story with humor, because her characters do like to
laugh, even in the worst circumstances.
Midwood, born
in Russia, currently lives in Brooklyn and has written several novels about New
York, a city she loves. She is working on the third book of THE GIRL FROM BERLIN trilogy, among others. She is a “dedicated yoga practitioner” an avid reader, and a student of languages.
Don't miss the excerpt from her book following the interview.
Q: You’ve
written several other novels, all of which take place in modern-day New York.
What inspired you to start the series THE GIRL FROM BERLIN set in 1930s-40s
Germany?
Ellie Midwood: It all
started nine months ago when I was watching a documentary on the liberation of
Auschwitz (I’m Jewish myself so matters like these have always been of great
importance for me), and the book actually was first supposed to be strictly
about the Holocaust and concentration camps. But as I started doing my research
I realized that so many memoirs and biographies have already been written by
the people who were actually there, and I would never write with the same
feeling and sincerity as those survivors already did.
However,
the subject was getting more and more interesting to me, I started reading more
books (mostly non-fiction) on the topic, watched probably every documentary
imaginable, and even found files from the CIA which became available for public
only after the 80’s or 90’s I believe, about the counterintelligence activities
and Nuremberg trials as well. And the Holocaust story became a historical
fiction, partially a spy thriller, partially a love story.
Q: Is the girl
in THE GIRL FROM BERLIN based on a real person, or did you create her in order
to tell your story? Did you envision the plot and then decide on the character?
Ellie Midwood: It’s a great
question, because a lot of people are asking me how it was possible that an
Aryan SS officer falls in love with a Jewish girl in the book, because there
weren’t many cases like that in Nazi Germany. However the ones that happened became
my other inspirational source, just like the story of a young Jewish girl Ilse
Stein who fell in love with and got saved – together with her family – by the
Nazi captain Willi Schultz, who was in charge of the Minsk ghetto (documentary
is called ‘The Jewess and the Captain’). There’s also another memoir written by
a Holocaust survivor called ‘The Nazi Officer’s Wife,’ so I would say that my
main character Annalise is a collective image of those real Jewish women, even
though she’s entirely fictional.
Q: How do you
engage readers in today’s world to care about characters in the first half of
the 20th century?
Ellie Midwood: Many people
still have that fascination with World War II and Nazi Germany history in
particular because it touched so many lives in one way or another. I would say
that many of us today have at least one person, dead or still alive who
remembers the events of that time or participated in them, so it certainly is
an interesting subject for a lot of readers nowadays.
What’s
really important is the eternal topics which arise as the story develops: that
love does conquer all and erases all the differences even in such horrifying
circumstances, that you have to stand up to evil even though sometimes you’d be
alone against millions, that you have to follow your heart and do what you feel
is right, and not blindly obey your leaders… I tried to embrace it all in my
book to make the readers think about their lives and their choices in the 21st
century.
Q: It’s easy to
assume that there is a hero-versus-villain approach in a book set in Nazi
Germany with a Jewish protagonist. However, are there different levels of
heroes and villains? Are some villains more villainy? And are some characters
neither?
Ellie Midwood: The readers
would be very surprised to learn that there are not purely positive or purely
negative main characters in THE GIRL FROM BERLIN, and that’s exactly how I
planned it to be. I didn’t want to make it another good guy – bad guy story, if
you know what I mean, where all the Nazis are bad and all their victims are
good. I wanted to show them real people, who make mistakes, who make wrong
decisions, who are forced to do certain things sometimes to survive, to save
their own lives and people dear to them, but in the end they are very honest to
themselves and still try to do the right thing.
For
example my protagonist Annalise, who is supposed to be a very positive
character, starts working in the Reich Main Security Office in order to help
the counterintelligence, but still harms her own people by fulfilling her
duties of an SS-Helferin. She has to lie a lot, she starts an affair with
another man, and that’s definitely not what you expect from a positive
character.
Her
husband Heinrich, who is now one of the key agents for the allied intelligence,
back in the day executed hundreds of Jews following the orders of his
commander. He shot his first wife to save himself from being compromised. That’s
definitely not something a good character would do.
But
if I made them too good, they wouldn’t be real. They wouldn’t last a day in
Nazi Germany if they would start an open fight against the regime, and I wanted
to make it clear in the book. They’re ordinary people who wanted to help the
people but who also wanted to survive.
As
for the villains, and that’s another interesting point, some of them turn out
to be not as evil as they seemed in the beginning. There are very brutal,
hateful Nazi characters in the book, but they play minor roles. The main ‘villain’
– the leader of the Austrian SS Gruppenfuhrer Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner turns out
to have his own story, and his character changes greatly throughout the whole
story. We only see the first glimpse of it in Book One, and later the readers
will be able to see the full transformation unravel. He’s actually my favorite
character in the book, very complex and unpredictable, good and bad at the most
unexpected moments. He wasn’t supposed to be in the story at all at first, but
I came across his biography and after doing more research, I just knew I had to
make him one of the main characters. He was a very controversial man, but had a
very interesting personality.
Q: You were
reared in Russia. Do you think your perspective about Nazi Germany is different
than those from other countries? Did that perspective influence your story?
Ellie Midwood: I was raised
in Russia, but the funny fact is that I don’t really consider myself Russian.
My family is all Jewish, and it’s a very different ethnic group from the Slavic
Russian people, and that was the reason why I moved to the United States; it
was very hard for me to fit into their society just because the mentality is
very different. So speaking of the Russian influence, especially Russian
government influence, which has a very strong opinion on the WWII, there was
very little of it, if any.
Something
else influenced my writing though. Many members of my family fought in that
war, my great grandfather came back with minor injuries, like my three great
uncles; my grandmother’s uncle never came back and nothing is known of his
fate. And my grandfather, who was only seventeen at that time, was lucky enough
not only to survive but to go all the way to Berlin where he served later for
several years in the Soviet occupation zone. That’s where he learned German,
which he started to teach me later, and learned about German culture and
traditions.
It’s
very interesting that he, a soldier who fought in the front and saw people die
every day, didn’t seem to have any hard feelings for the German army soldiers.
He was telling me many stories that sometimes they, the Russians and the Germans,
would announce a quick ‘non-offensive’ to exchange vodka for cigarettes and
other interesting things like that. He explained to me that they weren’t bad
people, they were just following their orders like all soldiers have to. I
tried to make exactly this point in my book, that not all of them were bad. I’m
not talking of the hardcore Nazis here of course, especially the ones belonging
to the Einsatzgruppen, or responsible for the Holocaust in the other way, it’s
a completely different question. Their atrocities are undeniable, and there’s
no doubt about that.
Q: What kind of
research did you do for historical accuracy and back-story? What were some of
the more interesting pieces of information you uncovered?
Ellie Midwood: I probably
read everything written on the topic: ‘The Gestapo: The History of the Horror,’
‘Nuremberg Diaries,’ ‘Nuremberg Trials,’ other historical non-fiction books, many
recovered and now available for public documents from the CIA archives, watched
every documentary possible, read many biographies and memoirs… I actually
started to joke that I live in 1930-40s now while writing this trilogy, I don’t
watch and don’t read anything unrelated to the topic, it’s very funny, but I’m
a perfectionist that way, if I get into something I have to really study it to
make myself impartial as the author.
It
is naturally assumed, especially concerning the war criminals, that they were
evil, horrible people. And after a thorough study I came to the conclusion that
there’s a lot more to their stories. If they were really bad, brutal Nazis and
it was confirmed by multiple sources, I transferred them into my book as they
were. But if some characters, I’m talking about real political figures of that
time of course, were different and acted not out of blind hatred but because of
some other reasons, I tried to show it as it was.
All
the historical events in the book, together with main Nazi leaders, are all
real and based on what truly happened, described by both history books (I used
different sources, not only American, but Jewish, British, French, German and
Russian as well, to get an objective point of view on the matter because every
country has its own opinion of the events of that time) and witnesses’
statements. So the book is very accurate from a historical point of view.
Q: Were you
able to use humor to develop your characters or tell your story?
Ellie Midwood: Oh yes. One
of my beta-readers actually pointed it out as one of the great features of the
story, that it’s not too dark and bloody but has a light side to it. My
characters are very real people and like real people they joke, they try to
keep up the mood even in the scariest situations. My main ‘villain’ Dr.
Kaltenbrunner is especially interesting in that sense, he’s very sarcastic and
feisty even with his superiors, and my readers told me that they loved his
character just for that.
There
is another great character who the readers will meet in Book Two, Otto
Skorzeny, who is another firecracker, they’re both Austrians and some of their
dialogues are absolutely hysterical. That’s how they were in real life
according to the sources, and I couldn’t help but put that in the book.
Sometimes their witty dialogues lighten a very serious mood, and it’s really
fascinating that they sometimes joke about very dangerous things as if it’s
nothing. It shows their character.
Q: Did you
write THE GIRL FROM BERLIN series strictly to entertain readers, or did you
also intend to educate and/or remind us?
Ellie Midwood: It’s
definitely not for entertainment only, it’s a very touching story in every
aspect, and it has a lot of very important themes which are timeless and of
which people are needed to be reminded. No wonder that after every Holocaust
remembrance post people put a hashtag ‘Never Again.’ Unfortunately today we
still have very real cases of genocide but many people prefer to close their
eyes to it since it doesn’t concern them directly. That’s what happened in
1930s when Hitler came to power and nobody seemed to care about the anti-Semitic
propaganda he started spreading. It’s very heartbreaking for me to hear now
that people blame the Israeli people in adopting ‘Nazi’ policies in order to
pursue their own ‘sinister’ goals. It’s the most ignorant point of view someone
can possible express, and is very insulting for me as a Jewish person. People
need to be reminded every single day of the things that happened during the WWII
in order for those atrocities to never happen again. And that’s another reason
why I wrote this book.
Q: What’s next?
Ellie Midwood: I’m currently
working on the third book of the trilogy ‘The Girl from Berlin,’ and after that
I’m planning to write a book which will also be a part of the series, but at
the same time will be separate from it. It’s going to be a sort of fictional
memoirs of my main ‘villain,’ and he has a very interesting story to tell. I’m
very excited and at the same time a little intimidated to start working on it
since it’ll be the first book written from a man’s perspective by me, and I
will have to really get into my character’s head to understand his motives and
actions.
Q: Tell us
about Ellie Midwood. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Ellie Midwood: I’m a very
dedicated yoga practitioner and an avid reader. So when I’m not writing I love
my yoga classes and a good book. I also love studying a lot, especially history
and languages, so recently I decided to remember all the German my grandfather
taught me and really learn it this time. The subject I’m currently writing on
was certainly a big motivation since I came across many words and notions that
I left untranslated for the book to sound more authentic. Next language in
queue is Hebrew, as I think I’ve gotten more religious and started to respect
my history even more after doing so many researches for my book.
About
Ellie Midwood
Ellie Midwood is a New York based author who loves writing about
her city and its people. She's a health obsessed yoga enthusiast, a neat freak,
an adventurer, Nazi Germany history expert, polyglot, philosopher, a proud Jew
and a doggie mama.
Ellie lives in Brooklyn with her Sicilian fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait.
Ellie lives in Brooklyn with her Sicilian fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait.
About
THE GIRL FROM BERLIN
This
is a diary of Annalise Meissner, a young German Jew with long time ago
falsified papers, living a carefree life in pre-war Berlin. A talented
ballerina, she comes from a wealthy family and at first doesn’t want to concern
herself with the changes her country starts undergoing under the new Nazi
regime. However, when the oppressions against the Jewish population begin, she
realizes that she can’t be a silent bystander and swears to help her people in
any way possible.
She falls in love and gets married to her father's longtime friend, Standartenführer Heinrich Friedmann, who even though he works for SD – the Reich Secret Service – seems to share her views, and soon Annalise learns why. Her new husband turns out to be a counterintelligence agent working for the US government, and together they start a dangerous game against the sinister Gestapo, trying to save as many lives as they can and not to compromise themselves.
But it's not only the persecuted people Annalise wants to save; she meets the leader of the Austrian SS Gruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner who everyone seems to fear, but for some reason Annalise isn't intimidated by the Chief of the Austrian Gestapo and doesn't believe the rumors about his brutality. Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner isn't hiding the fact that he would love to get this beautiful girl as his mistress, but Annalise, despite the mutual attraction, stays faithful to her beloved husband. However, the risky game she’s playing will soon change everything…
Excerpt
“Ilsa!
How did you allow this to happen?!”
“Hello,
grandma.”
“Don’t
you ‘hello grandma’ me, fraulein! Are you out of your mind to marry that man?!”
Even
though she was born and raised in Germany, Grandma Hilda was still very Jewish.
Unlike my mom, who was already very ‘Germanized,’ Grandma still spoke three
languages: German, Polish and Hebrew (the last two only with Grandpa when he
was still alive and very rarely with my mom, who didn’t understand any of it
anyway). Needless to say that with everything anti-Semitic going on, she hated
everything connected to the Nazi party out of some former national pride I
guess, which she clearly refused to give up.
“Mother,
what can I do?” My mom tightly hugged Grandma and kissed her on both cheeks. “She’s
in love, she wants to get married.”
“But
why to a Nazi?!”
“Grandma,
Heinrich is very nice. He’s not like the other Nazis.”
“No
such thing as a good Nazi!” Once that woman made up her mind on something, no
arguments normally worked to persuade her in the opposite, so I just shrugged
and turned to the mirror to put on my earrings. “All of them are evil and
merciless killers, that’s what they are! They think they’re better than
everybody else! The descendants of Gods! And whoever is not ‘purebred’ enough
needs to be get rid of in order not to ‘pollute’ the genes of the ‘superior’
race! Just look what they did to those poor people during Kristallnacht! And now my only granddaughter is marrying one of
them!”
“Heinrich
wasn’t even in Germany during Kristallnacht,
Grandma. He didn’t kill anybody.”
“Well, it’s true, Frau Brauer.” My father
finally came to my rescue. “Heinrich is more of a… an office worker. He works
for Intelligence. He just collects information, he doesn’t actually walk around
and kill people.”
“Collects
information about who, Richart?” Under Grandma’s stern look my father didn’t
seem happy he got involved into the whole conversation. “The ‘unfits.’ The
undesirable for the Third Reich people, which includes Jews, communists, and
everybody else who doesn’t support them. Maybe he doesn’t hold a gun himself
but the result is the same. Those people are dead. Or in camps.” She turned to me. “But I guess that
fact doesn’t concern you, does it? You betrayed your roots!”
“I
didn’t betray my roots, grandma! I can’t marry a man who I love because he’s
German? What, are you discriminating against Germans now?”
“They
discriminate against us, and I can’t discriminate against them? Since your
great-grandfather was forced to come to this country every single member of our
family would only marry Jewish people. They were hiding their origin just like
us, but that didn’t matter. We knew who we are and we honored it. And now you
want to marry a Nazi! Do you even realize that your kids are going to be Nazis?”
“Nazi
is not a nationality or religion, Grandma.”
“It
is both a nationality and religion now, girl!”
Links
Twitter: @EllieMidwood
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