In 1949, twenty-one-year-old Rashka Morgenstern emigrates to New York from Berlin following the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. Her only surviving family is her mother’s brother Friedrich Landau, her Feter Fritz, an Auschwitz survivor. Her mother was a prolific artist who perished in the Auschwitz–Birkenau concentration camps and her father had passed away when she was only two years old. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Rashka and her Feter Fritz find a place to live in New York and attempt to acclimatize to their new circumstances in the aftermath of their harrowing experiences during WW2.

The novel begins in 1955,New York where we meet our protagonist Rashka, now Rachel Perlman, married to Jewish-American Aaron Perlman who works as a manager in a seafood restaurant. Aaron had served in the Army but had not seen combat having been posted stateside in California. He admits that his knowledge of the plight of Jews during the Holocaust in Europe is limited to what he has seen in newsreels. He is a loving husband but is unable to fully comprehend the extent to which Rachel’s experiences during the Holocaust have cast a shadow on her present life. Rachel is unable to reconcile with her new life and is haunted by her memories of her years in Berlin – the anti-Semitic sentiments and Nazi policies that led to the loss of her home and the destruction of her mother’s art, her time scrounging for food and shelter on the streets of Berlin evading capture, their subsequent arrest and her Eema's deportation and subsequent death. Rachel is also an artist but is unable to pursue her passion on account of her personal demons. The burden that lays heaviest on her soul is the memory of what she had to do to stay alive and avoid deportation. Her memories are easily triggered and though she regularly sees a psychiatrist and is on mild medication, her anxiety and guilt find their way into every aspect of her life – from a breakdown in a posh department store where she used to work that leads to a brief stay in a psychiatric ward, her unwillingness to have children, to her discomfort around her building super who is a German immigrant. She considers herself not only an outsider but also refers to herself as an “oysvurf” a person with a “dead soul” a fact she admits to her sister-in-law Naomi’s black boyfriend who she assumes will understand her state of mind, himself being on the receiving end of racial discrimination and prejudice. When one of her mother’s paintings, thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis, resurfaces in a pawnbroker’s shop it takes her back to her most traumatic experiences during the War and Rachel’s horror and guilt threaten to suffocate her and she realizes that she must face her past to finally be able to have a future.

The narrative is set in 1950s New York, with flashbacks from Rachel’s past in WW2 Berlin that give us insight into the plight of “submarine Jews” (commonly referred to as U-boat Jews) who submerged beneath the surface of the city in a bid to escape deportation, removing the Judenstern ( the Star of David that was mandatorily sewn into their clothes)in an attempt to avoid identification and arrest and the black marketeers who exploited them for shelter, forged papers and ration slips. We also get to know more about “Der Suchdienst”, The Search Service , that granted select Jews(commonly referred to as the “Grabbers” or “Catchers”)special permissions and tasked them with patrolling the streets, parks and other establishments frequented by fellow Jews (U-Boats hiding in plain sight) and arresting them.

Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham is a compelling novel that revolves around the themes of grief, mental illness, survivors' guilt and the far-reaching effects of past trauma. This is a slow-paced novel that took me a while to get into and is not an easy read. The tone of the novel is dark and sad for the most part but also sheds a light on the inner strength and resilience of Holocaust survivors in starting over after everything they had been through. Heart-wrenching and profoundly moving, this is a memorable novel that I would recommend to readers who enjoy historical fiction set in the post-WW2 era.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing the digital review copy in exchange for an honest review. ( )

*SPOILERS*

GOOD:
- It was interesting to read a tad about physicists, the development of the atom bomb, and radioactive materials during the '40's.
- Lillian was an interesting character.

THE BAD:
- The title has nothing to do with the book. Sure, Lillian is a twin, and the shadow reference is probably referring to the shadows of atom bomb victims in Japan. But that's a real stretch. And the Japan bombing do not occur in this book.
- The novel does take place near the end of WWII, but to me it didn't feel like a WWII novel. Contrary to other references her in this review, it was more of a relationship, family, love story, mystery kind if novel.
- In reading the Author's note regarding true facts and historical research, it's my belief that certain facts were grossly exaggerated for the sake of the novel's short timeframe.

CONCLUSION: Worth a beach read day, but don't expect anything to historically or emotionally highbrow. ( )

This novel reads almost like a thriller - Lillian and Eleanor are twin sisters who have fallen out. Nevertheless, when Eleanor is missing (after signing up to work for the army at a secret facility in Tennessee), Lillian endeavors to retrace her sister's steps to find out where she might have gone. Things take an unexpected turn, however, when Lillian is mistaken for her sister and she ends up taking up her sister's job and even her relationship with a temperamental physicist. As Lillian seeks her sister, she uncovers a number of secrets about the Oak Ridge facility in Tennessee and the man her sister was seeing. Overall, this novel made for a compelling, almost impulsive story that easily hooked me as a reader. ( )

This was an interesting story with much history to consider. The relationship between twin sisters also made for interesting reading. ( )

For a book that I can’t describe as much more than okay, this was a hard one to put down. It was filled with intrigue and suspense but I never managed to relate to the characters. The bulk of it took place at the Manhattan Project facility in Oak Ridge, TN. where main character Lillian’s twin sister has gone missing. Lilian's there to find out if something happened to her sister or did she simply want to get away, especially after what Lillian did back in New York. And what of the other disappearances and rumors about human testing on whatever it is they’re secretly working on?

I think if this had focused more on the historical aspect of the story and less on the dramatic I would have liked it better than I did. That, and if the main character would have been a little more sympathetic instead of so self-centered. The writing is good and the plot definitely held my attention, it’s just the characters and their dynamics that didn’t work for me.

My thanks to the publisher and Goodreads Giveaways for a digital copy of this book to review. ( )