A novel about Womanhood under National Socialism – BERLIN

28th June 2023

Fragments of a Woman by Emma Venables, a novel about Womanhood under National Socialism – Berlin.

The scene is Berlin during the 1930s and WW2. The author has chosen several German women to feature in this book and charts in snapshot vignettes their progression as the war years unfold. These are the untold (fictional) stories of women, who had lives to live in the capital city and how they had to adapt, conform or rebel, and what the costs were to them as individuals.

The novel opens with Liesel and Greta who are dancing around the notion of a gay relationship – which of course was outlawed under Nazi rule. Gisela is a prostitute working the bars but again, as the dark days of the regime began to take a strangle-hold over society, that profession was deemed unacceptable – the gold standard at the time was that women would marry and bear children and learn how to run a household. We are also invited into the lives of Lore and Ingrid.

The women, in different ways, each had to act out of necessity for self preservation, and their responses to the over-arching rigours of the governing party were individual. Marriage could prove useful; cunning and deviousness were essential to survival; acquiescence perhaps a blessing for some; pragmatism a must. The author captures each woman’s fight to survive the war years in whatever way she could. Children were born, they survived, they died.

Indeed we see fragments of universal woman, cleaving her way through difficult times. Fractured, fragmented, each woman has her own unique journey.

The terrible things that happened during the war are part of the storyline, real people of the era make an appearance; there is suffering and some redemption. This is yet another story of war in Germany, this time seen from the German female perspective.

This is a character driven novel, focussing on the women. I felt luke-warm about the characters, they felt quite hard to get to know as they ploughed on so resolutely during the abominable war years. I wanted to be more moved by their plight than I was. This maybe was due to the fragmented structure of the novel.

The tenet of the story will remain with me, I am sure most readers are familiar with the horrors of the time. The women, however, have already begun to fade in my mind. The sense of place and time felt well researched and the use of German to enhance the period and place was good.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Catch the author on Twitter @EmmaMVenables

HERE the author talks about her research of the setting

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