I’m endlessly fascinated by the stories of young women from the WW2 era, who came of age at the moment the world was torn apart. As an author of wartime historical fiction with strong female characters, it’s vital for me to understand the experience of ordinary women who grew up in such extraordinary times, so I’m always on the hunt for real voices from the era. I’d love to think that in similar circumstances I’d face my challenges with the same humour, resourcefulness, bravery, and humanity as my favourite five female memoirists selected for you here.
Clare Harvey was inspired by a wartime memoir to write this dual timeline novel. Germany, 1945: Detta passes a group of exhausted British prisoners being force-marched through her village. But one of them catches her eye, and she cannot forget him. When she receives an urgent summons from the local priest, her life changes forever. Berlin, 1989: British photography student Miranda escapes a violent relationship by fleeing eastwards through the rubble of the recently demolished Berlin Wall. But her flight becomes a journey of self-discovery when she uncovers hidden connections to a German past.
Two women share a history and a dark secret: can they save each other now the time has come to reveal it?
I loved this book. It’s an absolute classic coming-of-age story, beginning when Emma is a schoolgirl on the brink of teens, and ending with her as a newly-married novelist. I particularly identified with the author as the bookish youngest of three, growing up in Devon – there were lots of parallels with my own teenage self – and I wonder how I would have coped with emerging into adulthood just as war broke out, as Emma did – highly recommended!
Uprooted from her beloved Great Western Beach, Emma Smith moves with her family from Newquay to the Devonshire village of Crapstone. But the dust has hardly settled when tragedy strikes, and Emma's father, a DSO-decorated hero of the Great War, is so frustrated by the hardship of life as a lowly bank clerk and by his thwarted artistic ambitions that he suffers a catastrophic breakdown - from which disaster Emma's resourceful mother rallies courageously. Then, in 1939, the war again becomes a reality. Emma's sister Pam at once enlists with the WAAF and Jim, her politically minded brother, after initially…
If I’d been a London teenager at the outbreak of WW2, Joan is who I’d choose to have as my best friend. Joan’s memoirs, taken from her actual diaries, which were written secretly during bombing raids, reveal a conflicted, hormonally charged, humorous woman. This snippet gives you an idea: “Well here I sit in the air-raid shelter with screaming bombs falling right and left…I can’t help feeling that each moment may be my last, and as the opposite of death is life, I think I shall get seduced by Rupert tomorrow.” Written with great wit, and full of joie de vivre, Love Lessons is a wonderful read.
On my way to the studio there was an air-raid. I ran into the brick shelter in the middle of the road. There were poor little Leonard and Agnes sitting on their suitcases, having lost their all. Luckily Leonard had been wearing his best trousers at the time. Madame Arcana was there too wearing a gold brocade toque and a blanket. It was bloody cold and I wanted to pee badly, but couldn't. Leonard wouldn't give me his seat as he believes in the equality of the sexes, so I sat on the floor...'
Some wartime memoirs are fascinating because they detail the lives of ordinary women in extraordinary times. But Nancy Wake was never ordinary. Brave, beautiful, and bull-headed, this feisty Australian worked undercover for the British Secret Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied France, leading French resistance fighters in sabotage missions against the Nazis. Nicknamed ‘The White Mouse’ by the Gestapo, Nancy was a key player in the Resistance, earning herself a clutch of medals after the war, including France’s Legion d’Honneur. There are plenty of biographies about this remarkable woman, but I recommend this, because it’s in her own words, and to me, that’s what makes it a special read.
Nancy Wake, nicknamed 'the white mouse' for her ability to evade capture, tells her own story. As the Gestapo's most wanted person, and one of the most highly decorated servicewomen of the war, it's a story worth telling.
After living and working in Paris in the 1930's, Nancy married a wealthy Frenchman and settled in Marseilles. Her idyllic new life was ended by World War II and the invasion of France. Her life shattered, Nancy joined the French resistance and, later, began work with an escape-route network for allied soldiers. Eventually Nancy had to escape from France herself to avoid…
I love taking elements from memoirs and spinning them into historical fiction. But some memoirs are better than novels, and this is one of them. Trudi recounts her life as a chic young hat designer in Vienna in 1938 who falls in love with Walter, a charming businessman. But Trudi and Walter are Jewish, and their love story rapidly becomes a desperate bid for survival, as the Nazis annexe Austria. Trudi is a wonderful writer, and her story is a gripping read of love, escape, and hope.
An “instantly mesmerizing” (Oprah.com) and “valuable piece of social history” (Chicago Jewish Star)—the astonishing memoir of a “vivid, tenacious, and absolutely unforgettable” (Bookreporter.com) woman whose courage and resourcefulness kept her and her beloved safe after the Nazis invaded Austria.
Vienna, 1938: Trudi Kanter, stunning and charismatic, is a renowned hat designer for Europe’s most fashionable women when she falls in love with a handsome businessman. “We were young and the world was ours,” she writes. Then, in the blink of an eye, Hitler comes to power and Kanter’s world collapses. She and her family embark on an incredible journey across…
This incredible memoir reads like a thriller. Polish-born Francoise ran a Berlin bookshop until she was forced to flee from Nazi persecution, first to Paris, then to Southern France. The term ‘unputdownable’ is a terrible cliché, but was literally the case for me with this breathtaking story of escape and survival. Clear your diary before you open the covers of this compelling book.
In 1921, Francoise Frenkel - a Jewish woman from Poland - opens her first bookshop in Berlin. It is a dream come true. The dream lasts nearly two decades. Then suddenly, it ends.
It ends after police confiscations and the Night of Broken Glass, as Jewish shops and businesses are smashed to pieces. It ends when no one protests. So Francoise flees to France, just weeks before war breaks out.
In Paris, on the wireless and in the newspapers, horror has made itself at home. When the city is bombed, Francoise seeks refuge in Avignon, then Nice. She fears she…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives about adoption, exposing the fallacy that adoption is always good.
In this story, I reckon with the pain and unanswered questions of my own experience and explore broader issues surrounding adoption in the United States, including changing legal policies, sterilization, and compulsory relinquishment programs, forced assimilation of babies of color and Indigenous babies adopted into white families, and other liabilities affecting women, mothers, and children. Now is the moment we must all hear these stories.
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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