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Genre: Historical: European, Inspirational, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Rachel. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book category.
The summary:
In 1944, blonde and blue-eyed Jewess Hadassah Benjamin feels abandoned by God when she is saved from a firing squad only to be handed over to a new enemy. Pressed into service by SS-Kommandant Colonel Aric von Schmidt at the transit camp of Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia, she is able to hide behind the false identity of Stella Muller. However, in order to survive and maintain her cover as Aric’s secretary, she is forced to stand by as her own people are sent to Auschwitz. Suspecting her employer is a man of hidden depths and sympathies, Stella cautiously appeals to him on behalf of those in the camp. Aric’s compassion gives her hope, and she finds herself battling a growing attraction for this man she knows she should despise as an enemy. Stella pours herself into her efforts to keep even some of the camp’s prisoners safe, but she risks the revelation of her true identity with every attempt. When her bravery brings her to the point of the ultimate sacrifice, she has only her faith to lean upon. Perhaps God has placed her there for such a time as this, but how can she save her people when she is unable to save herself?
Here is Rachel's review:
The four initial facts you absolutely need to know about For Such a Time by Kate Breslin are as follows:
1) It is an inspirational romance. God, faith, and the Bible (actually, a ‘magic’ Bible** that seems to show up whenever the main character needs to see it most) make regular appearances.
2) It is set almost entirely in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II, and deals extensively with the horrors of the Holocaust, with particularly unflinching consideration of the atrocities committed against children.
3) It is a retelling of the story of the Book of Esther. For those unfamiliar with that text, it is the story of how a young Jewish woman appeals to her husband, the not-Jewish King of Persia, in order to save her people from the genocidal designs of his abhorrent adviser.
4) You may see the writing on the wall already, but the combination of facts two and three above mean that this is a romance set between a Jewish woman and a high-ranking Nazi during the Holocaust.
Specifically, the romance is between half-Jewish prisoner, Hadassah, and Aric, an SS officer who saves her from execution at Dachau, then brings her to Theresienstadt (which he runs), to serve as his personal secretary– believing the whole time that she was raised by a Jewish family, but is not actually Jewish herself.
That initial briefing may be enough to tell you if this book is just Not For You. And honestly, it should have been enough for me to realize that. In particular, I knew going into the story that a Nazi-Jewish prisoner romance was almost certain to be a dealbreaker for me. I’m not a historian; I can’t say such a relationship never happened. And I can’t say that a fictional treatment of such an imagined relationship couldn’t, in the right hands, be a fruitful source for difficult and meaningful meditations on mercy, forgiveness, and what love truly requires. But if you want me to believe that a relationship between the top official at a concentration camp and his prisoner truly is a love story, rather than a story about heinous disparities in power and something like Stockholm Syndrome — well, that would take a lot of convincing. This book just didn’t get there for me.
Let me be clear that despite the low grade, quite a lot of the book is very good. Breslin is a wonderful prose writer: While some of the themes and things her characters did made me side-eye (or, you know, go into a livid meltdown), her prose never did. Her descriptions are both beautiful and horrible (which seems appropriate given the subject matter), and she has a particular gift for conveying the painful, imploding sense of frustration that Hadassah feels watching her people be tortured and killed, and knowing that there is nothing she can do that won’t reveal her true identity and get her killed.
Breslin also seems to have done quite a lot of painstaking research — both into Holocaust history and the Book of Esther. I was particularly impressed that Breslin managed to parallel not just the broad sweeps of the Book of Esther in her novel, but also translated the smaller plot points as well.
And she has a gift for well-drawn support characters who the reader believes have challenging and important stories of their own going on offscreen. Hadassah’s dignified, wise, quietly witty Uncle Morty– who is the sole surviving Jewish elder at the camp, cruelly (not nearly a strong enough word) tasked by the Nazis with deciding who will be deported to the death camp at Auschwitz– is, for me, the best thing about the novel.
Despite all those good things, this book simply did not work for me. And the reason is its central romance — or, more specifically, its romantic hero, Aric. Full disclosure: I knew going into this book that almost nothing would make me get on board with the head of a concentration camp as the hero.
Perhaps this was a failure of compassion on my part, but I simply am not able to get past the number of war crimes, human rights abuses, and general atrocities Aric commits both before and during the story. I’m glad that by the end of the story he finally does some truly good and courageous things, but that doesn’t mean I think he’s relationship-ready. (He’s super not.)
The reality of Aric’s relationship with Hadassah is that, at all times, he holds her life in his hands — and they both know it. In that context, his repeated expressions of desire for Hadassah and his penchant for grabbing and kissing her aren’t just your standard romance dubious-consent hash, but are an incredible, intolerable abuse of his power.
Breslin tries to make Aric’s behavior look good in comparison by making virtually every other Nazi officer who encounters Hadassah overtly rape-y, but ‘better than a cartoonishly evil Nazi’ should, in my view, be a prerequisite for a hero, not a selling point. (Breslin’s treatment of Aric’s role as an SS officer is similar: While he does not spout the same kind of anti-Semitic vitriol the other characters do and shows compassion to several Jews even before his Big Redemption Arc, that doesn’t change the fact that he joined up with the Nazis of his own free will and oversees mass incarceration and murder.) Aric is brooding, taciturn, grabby, extremely possessive, convinced that his lover will ‘save him’ from his shit choices, and almost always unwilling to let his lover make her own decisions (although Hadassah finally calls him on that one toward the end of the book). In short, he is all the things I usually abhor in an alpha hero. Stuff all that into an SS uniform, and you can guarantee that I will be flipping my crap in anger every couple of pages.
As for Hadassah, I never fully understood how and why she falls for Aric. Yes, he is damaged (both spiritually and physically thanks to a war injury), and yes he clearly wants her, and yes, the grabby-hands kissing seems to work for her. But her transition from “He’s my captor who is participating in the destruction of 6 million people” to “He’s my captor and he’s broody-hot but I shouldn’t” to “I love him!!!!” was too early and abrupt for me to really make sense of it; it felt more like a narrative prerequisite than an organic development. As a result, Hadassah’s attachment to Aric always struck me more as a naturally loving person (her main character trait throughout the story is being incredibly maternal to every child she comes across) who has been demeaned, degraded, and left out in the cold, understandably clinging to any bit of mercy or affection she can find, rather than an Inspiring Love Story. And honestly, I’d rather read a novel that acknowledges and respects the former reality (deeply sad though it may be), rather than insisting on the latter fantasy.
**Yes, the Bible, New Testament and all, guides Hadassah and helps her find her faith again. Did I find it troubling that, particularly in a novel about the Holocaust, the specter of conversion to Christianity was so central in ‘saving’ the Jewish heroine? Uh. Yes. To be fair, Breslin treats the New Testament, and the sacrifical story of Christ in particular, as a supplement to Hadassah’s Jewish faith, rather than a replacement for it. But every time that Bible popped up, I became extremely uncomfortable. Fair warning.
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@MsCellany I didn’t see anyone answer yet the question on the Rita award process. I’m an RWA member. Any member of RWA can submit their published book to the Ritas for consideration. RWA HQ then dispenses the manuscripts among volunteer judges, who are also all paid members of RWA. The kicker here is you do not get to name what category you want to judge; you can only exclude 2 options. So me, as a YA author, could say I don’t want to judge erotic romance or paranormal and I would not be given those entries. So each of the random allottment of judges who received this book rated it high enough to final. Inspirational is one of the smaller categories, so it is possible there were many fewer choices than more popular categories like contemporary romance or historical.
@AnotherD – The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah is 2015 historical about French women in Nazi-occupied France who help downed pilots. There is also a Nazi officer boarding with one of the women while her husband is off to war and while there is nuance in character with one of the lower ranked Nazis, the commanding officer is utterly terrifying. This book is more Women’s Fic and is not a straight up romance. Written very well, IMO.
Thank you to the reviewer here. This response is thoughtful, especially giving credit to the author for well-written prose despite the subject matter. I checked this book out from the library in an attempt to read through some Rita nominees (being an RWA member). I didn’t get to reading this because I got over zealous with my book stack and needed to return it. I had no idea the heroine converts, I was actually looking forward to an inspirational about a Jewish character. I don’t know enough about Christian publishing to have known this was a Christian product. I also figured the Nazi would be some low ranker under duress who helped her escape. I assumed lot of things, clearly.
Great review that calls out the problematic nature of the story. Also props to everyone who commented for a really interesting discussion.
Okay, there are not enough nos in the world. Thank you, Rose Lerner, for bringing this to my attention with your amazing tumblr post (which you guys can see here) highlighting the mental gymnastics people are willing to undertake to rationalize their enjoyment of this offensive book.
@SorchaRei I have read and enjoyed books written by Debbie Macomber, but based on her blurb for this book, she’s going on my DNR list. AGREED.
Somehow, I missed this review back in June and only found it thanks to the Open Letter SB Sarah wrote to RWA. I’ve been trying to figure out how to put my rage into a comment and have been struggling with not sounding like a crazy person.
I grew up a part of the Roman Catholic Church, an extremely hateful community that taught us Jews were stupid and murderers (they killed Jesus!) and that we should pity them because they haven’t accepted the fact that Jesus was the Savior. We were also taught that priests were infallible, women are inferior, and gay people were going to Hell. This was in the late 1990’s, so not that long ago. Obviously, I have many issues with the Catholic Church.
The reason I mention this is because the idea of converting the Jews was an every day thing when I was a kid and even then I knew this was wrong. This is why, for me, the fact that the heroine converts to Christianity in the end is almost as bad as the fact that the hero is an SS officer. It makes me think that she fully gave into her Stockholm Syndrome. Not only did she fall in love with her captor but she also chose to repudiate her religion for his–for the religion of the people that exterminated millions of her compatriots. Her conversion signals the idea that she, by the fact of her Judaism, is somehow worse than the hero’s Nazism and needed to become Christian to be worthy of his love.
The fact that this book exists makes me wonder who it was written for–it certainly wasn’t written for Jewish people or for anyone with a conscience. It sure as hell isn’t helping with the stereotype that Conservative, American Christians aren’t all Jew hating Neo-Nazis who wave both their Nazi and Confederate flags with pride. And right now, that’s a stereotype they really need help getting away from.
Is Sarah’s letter to RWA available public, ie, me?
When this review came out I spent quite a bit of time trying to visualise the mindset of the market for it. There is some discussion of this in the comments – there seems to be a certain evangelical christian population this sort of thing would appeal to. Hence being picked up by a publisher who thoughtfully provided the cover graphic of people waiting for the train to take them to take them to Auschwitz, used the Star of David to base the title thing on, etc etc,
@Des Livres:
I shared my letter to the RWA Board on my Tumblr. You can read it here.
I was trying to explain to the RWA Board, many of whom I know personally and hold a great deal of respect, why the nomination was so upsetting and offensive. I posted it on my personal Tumblr after a long conversation on Twitter about the book, but didn’t expect it to spread so widely and so far so quickly!
What a great letter. I’m so glad you wrote it Sarah, and are writing to the other people involved. I really wanted to Do Something but didn’t know how to proceed without causing more distress and negativity.
Thank you, Sarah, for writing that letter and struggling with your anger to communicate the problems with this book so eloquently. You mentioned in your introduction that they responded. Are you free to share their response? I would certainly be interested to read it.
You said “In the Holocaust, over 6 million Jews, and more than 17 million people in total were killed by the Nazis. In For Such a Time, the hero is redeemed and forgiven for his role in a genocide. The stereotypes, the language, and the attempt at redeeming an SS officer as a hero belittle and demean the atrocities of the Holocaust. The heroine’s conversion at the end underscores the idea that the correct path is Christianity, erases her Jewish identity, and echoes the forced conversions of many Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust.”
As I read this, something feel into place for me. I think. I don’t know this author, I know nothing about her but as I read your words that I’ve quoted, Sarah, the idea came to me that possibly the author is an evangelical Christian whose purpose in writing this novel is to tell the world that everyone can repent and be forgiven of their sins, even the most heinous. Also, an evangelical Christian would very much believe that the only correct path for any human being is Christianity.
I am a Christian. I certainly do believe that God forgives the sins of the truly repentant. That is a fundamental teaching. However, just because a person repents and receives God’s forgiveness does not mean that person is off the hook for the consequences of those sins. And that, I believe, is one of the many problems with this book. There is the implication that because of his repentance, the commandant of the concentration camp not only escapes the consequences of his heinous actions but is rewarded with the love of this woman.
As for her conversion to Christianity… generally speaking, I am delighted when people convert to Christianity. I walk the mystic path myself and I can genuinely say I would love everyone in the world to experience that. Available evidence, however, forces me to conclude that a very great many people in the world find meaning and holiness on other spiritual paths. I have been blessed by them. I think of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, the Sufi mystic and the Dalai Lama right off the top of my head.
In this book, though, what bothers me about her conversion to Christianity is the implication that if the Jews had wised up, they could have escaped the Holocaust by converting to Christianity and that they brought it on themselves by their refusal to change their religion. What is deeply troubling to me is that there are, in fact, Christians out there in the world who believe exactly this. Now, let me hasten to say, I am not accusing the author of believing this. I don’t know her. What I am saying is that I knew people at my seminary who expressed this conviction. That conviction is as repugnant to me now as it was then.
The other issue with the conversion is that if the author had done any research into the history of the Holocaust, she would have discovered that there were Jews who did convert to Christianity in an attempt to escape the concentration camps and they were sent anyway. Conversion did not protect them.
Reading that collection of five star reviews cited in Sarah’s introduction, it looks to me as if they were all written by Christians who seems to accept the premise that if a person repents, they can escape the consequences of their actions. Perhaps that is being taught in some churches. It is not what I was taught as a child, when I was in seminary, nor is it what is being taught in my church today.
I applaud and romance writer who wants to tackle a horrible situation. Lori Foster wrote a series in which human trafficking takes place. I recently read “Asking For It” by Lilah Pace in which the couple explore a rape fantasy. Certainly romance writers have written about all forms of abuse.
When I have read these books, the authors have always written very respectfully of the victims of the abuse. They did not perpetuate the abuse by making the abused responsible for their own abuse.
Except for Linda Goodknight, I have found myself unable to read the Christian inspirational romance novels because I have always found them too pat. Too simplistic. In the ones I’ve read, except for Linda Goodknight, the message seems to be “If you get right with God, nothing bad will ever happen to you again” and I know no Christian for whom that is true.
Well, I have certainly written a lot here. Won’t be at all surprised if no one reads through to the end. LOL Once I start shooting my mouth off…
There is one redeeming feature to this book that I can see. Well, “redeeming” might be a stretch. I have certainly enjoyed the thought provoking conversation we have been having here. I am glad to find myself in the company of smart, thoughtful, and discerning readers. Thank you.
Thanks for the warning. Really. This sounds so bad. Esther is not a love story. It is the story of one women’s courage to save her people. But it is not a love story.
And the Christian angle on a Holocaust story is so not right.
The Book of Esther is NOT a romance. Yes, it is about the sacrifices a woman has to make for her people but – she never falls for her husband (who she didn’t want to marry in the first place), he isn’t actively committing genocide, and she manages to save everybody. So I’m not sure how this is a retelling.
It is also hugely offensive and I’m amazed this was nominated for even one award, let alone two. I have no problem with Christian inspirational books, but this is just ugly. If you feel the need to write a Christian inspirational book set during the Holocaust why does it have to be between a Nazi and a Jew? How about between a Nazi and one of the female camp guards?
It is insulting to every survivor and their relatives. My grandparents got out just before my grandfather was arrested for being part of the underground. My great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousin were taken to Auschwitz. Only one of my aunts and uncles survived, including my second cousin, who was two.
That she converts at the end is even worse. Turning her back on her faith and her people for a murderer? Even Marranos didn’t actually convert and went to great lengths to still keep their faith and beliefs.
you know, you could possibly have a jewish woman in a concentration camp seducing the commandant to save her people, and maybe she could even find something redeeming in him, if he did indeed did a turnabout and save her people – does this even happen in the book? It didn’t happen in history. but the very notion that he can’t even see her as a Jew, means he can’t be ‘in love’ with her, and the fact that the author has her convert is the worst betrayal I can think of , the ‘hero’ (excuse me while I gag) never knows who the woman is he loves and in the end, she doesn’t know herself, how did this TRIPE even get published as romance, of all things, or be nominated for an award?
Gloriamae, commenting to say, I read right through to the end, and thank you! I have family members who converted and were sent to Theresienstadt to die anyway.
To me, the fact that she converts feels really like a violation of the character – a theft of her identity in some way. One’s faith is such a fundamental, personal thing, and particularly with Judaism, has such a strong connection to culture and family.
Also, it feels a bit exploitative to me – as though she has used the character’s Jewishness to raise the stakes/drama/impossible love factor, and having achieved this, changes this aspect of her identity for an easier ending. (Which is a complaint I also have about novels where someone turns out to be suddenly not barren or not illegitimate or not going to die of an incurable disease, if that was the entire conflict driving the plot. Don’t make the book about this ISSUE and then delete the issue at the end so that we can all be comfortable with our happy ever after.)
A Jewish woman and a Nazi concentration camp overlord fall in love, fall in the Bible, and ……
I wish I hadn’t seen this. I wish I hadn’t come across this. Lord, help me.
I took 20th Century Europe and Nazi Germany. The atrocities of this war were made intimately familiar to me and my classmates. Itemized things, seared into my brain that – toward the end of the class, made me sick to my stomach.
6 Million Jews were murdered in Nazi death camps all across Europe. 20 million other people, including the infirmed, mentally disabled, and elderly men, women and children were also killed. Among the victims as well, were Russians, Roma (or Gypsies) and people of other political ideologies such as socialists and communists. A group of elite killers called the ‘einsatzgruppen’, 1,000 people made up of teachers, doctors, lawyers and other professionals, became responsible for the murder of millions of people the SS didn’t take out directly. They went in after the invasion forces had already passed through and dispatched all those that had survived. There was NOTHING!!!!! of value in those times except for a few people who tried to stand up to Hitler such as The League of the White Rose and a Lutheran Minister named Bonhoeffer. Catholic priests were made to stand by and, because they refused to choose who should be put to death, prayed the rosary while SS officers executed prisoners one right after another, before being executed themselves. The Nazi regime was the single most criminal government ever known to mankind.
I am worried about the trend of literature and entertainment. I am worried about people taking bad and converting it to misunderstood. From vampires, to witches, to Maleficent in that recent disney movie, now to a Nazi death camp overlord in some whitewash and romanticized version of a terrible bout in world history. Regardless of how well it is written, what is being done, is the removal of good vs evil and casting things into this shaded grey area where everyone is almost an anti hero. A misunderstood woeful being.
Let me say this again, there were very very few hero’s in Nazi Germany. Very few.
Before the Iron Curtain fell, it was the scholarly hypothesis that the SS and the SA overwhelmed the German population to it’s will. Once the curtain came down and Russia (who had been our ally during the second world war) released the documents that they’d seized from German hands who were trying to destroy them, it became clear that the German people at the time had overwhelmed THEIR government by turning on each other and turning each other into the secret police.
The fact that this book made it this far into the RWA’s award ceremony disturbs the absolute shit out of me. There ought to be things that are untouchable. Certain subjects that, if for nothing more than respect, should be handled with care and should not be manipulated into something that would – in a way- glamourize or give a wrong impression by those who read it. As authors, we have a RESPONSIBILITY – R.E.S.P.O.N.S.I.B.I.L.I.T.Y to the world as craftsmen to reflect even in fiction- truth.
And we should NEVER NEVER NEVER ….rely on cheap gimmicks and whitewashing to reap rewards over the deaths of millions upon millions of men, women, and children, to make a buck or to entertain. Evil does exist in the world. Monsters. Wraiths. Shades that don’t haunt homes or cemeteries. But they haunt the hearts of men and cause them to do evil things to each other. Wicked things like Genocide. We forget that, or roll our eyes at that idea, at our own peril.
As Mark Twain once said, History does not repeat itself. However, it often does rhyme.
I am so impressed by the level of these comments and so sickeningly appalled by the book, author, publisher and RWA that I ask you to please excuse my comments not being in any logical order.
The author cannot have not known about the cover. In my own desire to see a book published I approved the publisher’s cover. After I realized how absolutely dreadful it was I had the book withdrawn.
Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews, including many in my family, were murdered by the Germans and Hungarian fascists. Death marches, starvation, being shot with their bodies thrown into the Danube, shipped to Auschwitz. To use an image of them to sell a book is despicable.
Does anyone still say Jewess, Negress, sculptress or actress?
About Amalek: the Tanakh is filled with many strange things: slavery, women as property, stoning disobedient children, homophobia being just a few examples. Religious fanatics have used their interpretation of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles to condone all kinds of atrocities. Just look at recent murders in Israel and Palestine and never ending violence around the world.
About Esther: there have been more debates over that story than anyone can count. But no one has ever had the chutzpah to desecrate it like this.
Hannah Arendt (“the banality of evil”) was a German Jew who was vilified not only for her writing but for having a married lover who was a Nazi. But as horrible a person as he was he didn’t run a concentration camp.
Just as during the Spanish Inquisition many Jews thought converting would save their lives. It didn’t with most in Spain and with hardly any during the Shoah. Evangelicals want to end Judaism by converting every Jew on earth. They are also violently homophobic. Among Christians I believe only Episcopalians are forbidden to proselytize Jews.
Everything about this book is not only insulting but dangerous. I wonder why the ADL or other groups have not spoken out.
Brad
For a minute there, I was thinking seriously about escalating the situation about this book. I was thinking about the German Government, the Israeli Government, the US State Department, Jewish organisations (I assume they have some national peak body? They do here in Australia) and then I realised that no one’s existence is improved by knowing about this book. I don’t want more Jewish people to know about this book, it is so profoundly insulting and invalidating. Discovering the existence of this book is a distressing experience and I don’t want to do that to anyone.
That is why I think Sarah is doing a great thing by contacting people who were involved in making this book and thus, already know about it.
I have been pondering “what should be done” generally about this book, and books like this, but can’t come up with anything.
From my childhood to my late teens, I was an occasional caregiver to two elderly Polish ladies. They were my best friend’s grandma and great aunt. They were both survivors of Auschwitz. I can tell you about abuse, fear, terror, torture and other atrocities these women experienced. Medical experiments. Rape. Sterilization. I can tell you about the sick feeling I still get when I saw the tattoos on their arms and the ID card that Babcha kept next to her bed for her entire life.
I have many thoughts and feelings about this entire situation, but what I can say in absolute truth is this: Babcha and Chachua would have been horrified, humiliated and enraged by the topic of this book.
The reviewer bent over backwards to be fair, but some books don’t deserve fairness. They deserve snark and ridicule. They deserve to be mercilessly made fun of until they lose their power. That this book has been published is not a surprise in a time when anyone can publish anything. That it’s winning “awards” at a time when most actual survivors of the camps (and in proportion to their numbers, there were very few) are dying and their real stories are being lost, is nothing short of nauseating. That it’s topped with Christian piety, and the idea of Jews “perfecting themselves” by finding Jesus is almost a parody. It checks off everything on the list of how to offend and murder history with words.
Although this is remarkably tone-deaf for a 21st-Century romance novel, the theme of a Jewish heroine redeemed through a Christian man has been around for a long time.
Read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and pay attention not to Shylock but to his daughter Jessica — “I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian.” Another moneylender’s daughter, Ivanhoe‘s Rebecca, doesn’t get to marry the hunky hero but is saved from burning as a witch by his heroism.
I’m a big romance fan who has never considered reading an ‘Inspirational’ title, so I couldn’t say if those publishers regularly take this tack. Like many other commenters, I am taken aback by the crassness of the subject matter and plot and cover. And seriously, even the worst bad-boy-rake romance heroes would blanch at the thought of perpetuating genocide, and who has their fantasy-reader switches tripped by agonizing chapters featuring children being gassed? As a backdrop for a romantic relationship?! Between a card-carrying Aryan and a woman of a ‘mongrel’ race?!?!? The mind boggles.
I can’t decide if the RITA folks merely let this one slip through the cracks, or if the Inspirationals crowd holds a lot of sway on the board. Either way, this has led to a fascinating discussion. Thanks for prompting and hosting it!
F.E.Feeley Jr – I debated with myself if I should say anything, but feel like I probably should. I see you feel strongly about evil, but, um… Vampires? Not real. Witches – the ones with actual supernatural powers, whether evil fairies (like Maleficent) or mortals-who-sold-their-souls for dark magic? Not real either. Nazis? Real.
Please, don’t equate “friendly/sexy vampires”/”surprise, this fictional villain was the real Good Guy all along!” and actual Nazi apologism.
Liking a fictional villain or liking a story in which some folklore monster is shown as Actually Pretty Nice doesn’t inevitably lead a person to start cheering for real-life terrorists, dictators, serial killers etc. (Yes, of course, there are always people who would go overboard to “prove” that their favourite villains aren’t that bad and that actual heroes are worse, and in the process they start sounding as members of actual hate groups. But it’s not like aforementioned actual heroes of the story never ever have narrow-minded fans prone to spewing hate.) A lot of people on this very board just recently talked about their crushes on Jareth and other fictional baddies – so, what, are we all child-stealers and poisoners in the making, or something? I hope you don’t really think so.
P.S. Also, “witches” who are/were real? Wiccans, old peasant women with medicinal knowledge, just random people killed because someone falsely accused them of being witches? Probably wouldn’t appreciate being equated with Nazis either, I’m just saying.
@SorchaRei – Just FYI, there was an excellent novel by Joanne Greenberg called The King’s Persons that took place in York just before and during the massacre of 1190, and that includes a romance between a young Jewish woman and a young Christian man. Interestingly, the young man tries to convert to Judaism so he can marry her, but the rabbis refuse, because they feel the times are too dangerous. Unfortunately, the book has been out of print for many years, but if you ever come across a used copy, I’d recommend it.
I’m so mad that the LJ review of this was so misleading: “Rescued from a firing squad by an SS officer, Hadassah Benjamin, hiding under the false identity of Stella Mueller, is pressed into service as a secretary for the Kommandant. But in order to save herself, she must stand by as her people are sent to their deaths at Auschwitz. Still, she senses that Col. Aric von Schmidt might be sympathetic and appeals to him on behalf of the people in the camp.” I read this to mean that the Kommandant and Aric were two different people. I would not have bought this for my library if I’d known how f-ed up the power dynamic was. 🙁
@Stephanie Scott
Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it.
Again a question to anyone – has the RWA made any statements or responded to any of the correspondence they’ve received about this book?
This is b.s. statement is what I found. I was also told it’s been written about in one of the Jewish papers. I’ll search for that article.
Good weekend to all SBs.
“The Board of Directors of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) has received a great deal of heartfelt and moving feedback about some of the finalists in this year’s RITA contest. We want the membership to know we have heard your concerns and have spent days discussing them.The question that we must answer is what RWA as a writers’ organization should do when issues arise regarding the content of books entered in the RITA contest. Discussions about content restrictions inevitably lead to concerns about censorship. Censoring entry content is not something the Board supports. If a book is banned from the contest because of its content, there will be a move for more content to be banned. This is true, even especially true, when a book addresses subjects that are difficult, complex, or offensive.There were 2,000 entries in the RITA contest this year. The RITA is a peer-reviewed award.
There is no vetting of content before a book may be entered. Books are entered, not nominated, and those books are judged by fellow romance authors. The Board believes this is how the contest should be run. RWA does not endorse the content of any book entered in the contest. We do believe, however, that education and conversation are important in dealing with the concerns expressed. To that end, we will open an online forum on the RWA website for members to discuss their concerns. This is not a perfect solution, but we believe open dialogue, not the censorship of content, is the right way to handle the issues expressed.”
This is the article in The Forward. They permit comments.
There’s also a good article in the Forward Sisterhood yesterday by Jennifer Weiner, though not about that awful book.
Plz excuse typo in my earlier post.
The Nazi-Holocaust Survivor Romance Novel You Weren’t Waiting For
Read more: http://forward.com/sisterhood/318755/nazi-romance/#ixzz3iEmgpsxa
As an RWA member, I have judged the first round of the RITA’s for two years now, and I would say that from the point of view of the judges: It’s very hard to judge.
If I had been unlucky enough to receive this book in my packet, I would’ve probably agonized over how to score it. Because you’re encouraged to avoid bias, and the only solid questions you had to answer this year about each book(aside from whatever number you came up with to rate it out of 10) were something like:
Was there a satisfyingly optimistic ending? (AKA was there an HEA?)
Was the romance central to the story?(Other genre with Romantic Elements… are ineligible for RITA/GH.)
Nowhere in the judge guidelines does it ask:
Is this story based on a horribly horribly offensive premise/setting/etc?
I would’ve probably adjusted my scoring for this nonsense, regardless of whether I felt like it was biased, because I’m like that when angry enough… Then I’d worry about it for a few days, whether I was fair about the actual writing and mechanics… because I’m also like that. I like to make bold decisions and then worry and fret over them for days.
Sidenote: One of the three Inspirationals I got to judge had offensive and racist ideas built into it too, but the other two didn’t. It wasn’t anywhere near this level, but I’m starting to think it’s more pervasive in the genre than I’d have otherwise expected. I’m not saying which Inspy I read that I was offended by, or even who I am… because of my desire to abide by the judges agreement not to discuss the books judged.
And I’m not sure what the right thing is for RWA to do here. If they start limiting subjects that could be submitted, then how do they govern that list and who gets to decide what is offensive? I’d like to think that if someone submitted some pedophilia erotica, it would be disqualified, but I don’t see anything like that in the guidelines. So it is probably understood that people would be able to ascertain how horribly wrong that would be and rate accordingly(or bow out of judging that book, which you can do), but I understand the difference in those two situations… because while I’d like to think that most people would balk at both premises, clearly there’s a demographic of people who just don’t get it.
I also don’t understand how that demographic can be giving it lots of stars. If you changed Aric to Hitler, would people still be able to sweep the genocide and war crimes under the HEA-Rug? Would that finally elicit the morally and ethically appropriate emotional response?
Since this happened I have been pondering how to fix things up for the future. The problem with an elimination question like “Is this story based on a horribly horribly offensive premise/setting?” is that many would place MM romance in that category.
On the RWA forum, someone posited 2 interesting unacceptable stories – a menage including a german shepherd and one where one partner consensually and erotically slowly kills the other one. Neither is analogous to the holocaust setting. One is murder, one is bestiality. Okay, how about illegal? “Does this story based on an illegal premise?” Well, again, in lots of countries, MM relationships are illegal (and in many more they were illegal until recently) – but at least it would capture stories with statutory rape (one of the MCs being too young). Also, I understand (I am not reading them) that there is a trend in Romancelandia to do with motorcycle gangs who go around committing crimes all over the place, and mafia/Russian mafia/Japanese Yakuza MCs – so that question would capture them. This would please some readers, and really annoy others.
All I can think of as an effective Eliminating question is: “Does this story involve a Nazi and a jewish woman against the background of the holocaust?” In terms of legal drafting the initial general options are to go broad or go specific. Specific seems to address this situation better than broad.
I did consider the Elimination question: “Does this story take place in the background of/in the setting of genocide?” The problem with that one is that there is some controversy over whether certain historical events (other than the holocaust) were genocide. So there is a lot of horrific stuff the question would not capture anyway.
I hadn’t heard about this controversy or this book until it was discussed at our HCRWA chapter meeting yesterday. One member suggested that a pivotal question, on which a romance qualifies or fails to become an award finalist, is the “satisfying optimistic ending” standard.
So I would be interested to hear from more readers who like the book, because I’d like to understand what, for them, provides the “satisfyingly optimistic ending.” (I have read all the comments, and I only find one correspondent who explains that, in Christian inspirationals, the fact that there’s a conversion makes the ending meet the criteria; but the same correspondent also hints that she’s not herself quite convinced that conversion alone should be enough.)
Apart from whether the book met the HEA standard, the plot point that makes me queasy is that the heroine is half Jewish. This nicety struck me as something that maybe, perhaps, Bethany or the author felt that their readership would not identify with a completely Jewish heroine as readily.
I’ve been thinking about this, and for me, a pivotal issue is the category itself. Do “Inspirational” books have to be Christian? I’ve read books that have no religious elements at all, but I’d qualify as inspirational. Perhaps RWA needs to address that category so it would be open to a greater diversity of entries.
When I’ve judged in the past, I requested no inspirationals because I’m not Christian and can’t really relate to it. But if the category was expanded to encompass other religions and stories that were spiritual and uplifting rather than Judeo Christian, it would put books like this into a different perspective.
Des Livres,
I see your point, even if I disagree that M/M romance could be in any manner this level of horrific to anyone. They might be offended because it’s outside of their belief-system, but not because gay men once banded together to slaughter multitudes for … whatever.
There has to be a way to phrase it, or my husband couldn’t keep coming up with situations that are horrible and mirror this setup:
The historical romance of a general of Saddam Hussein and a curdish girl who survived him gassing her entire village.
Does the central romance of this book in any way belittle the victims of war crimes, or glorify race crimes? <– Simple and not so broad as to traipse on fantasy crime sprees with motorcycle gangs. 🙂
I'm feeling less generous today as to what maybe should and shouldn't be limiting. Just because RWA is based in a country with freedom of speech, doesn't mean that every speech should be awarded. Just because something can be written doesn't mean it has to be accepted into the contest.
It wasn't so long ago that erotica wasn't something accepted in the RITAs.
I don't believe there is any category for romance short stories.
You can't submit an entire anthology by different authors, you have to specify the story and it has to be of novella length.
I need to find that forum that RWA set up and read it. If anyone's got a link handy, I'd appreciate it 🙂
Two thoughts on this.
First, I wonder if it would be helpful to have stricter rules (perhaps a second level of vetting) for historical romances that use a setting that occurred within the last 100 years – a ‘living memory’ rule of some sort. Because – all considerations of good taste aside – I think one reason so many people are so very upset about this is that we know people who lived through the holocaust. I suspect that a similar romance between, say, an Inquisitor and a Jewish woman in 15th century Spain would make people angry, and rightly so, but it wouldn’t have the same visceral effect that this particular novel has done.
(I don’t know how one would word this rule, and I realise that this still leaves some problematic romances free and clear, but this romance wasn’t just problematic, it was also very personal to many people.)
Second thought – from what I’ve been reading, it sounds as though this particular Inspie was very popular among its intended audience because that audience is a fairly distinct culture with distinct mores when it comes to what is considered appropriate, or indeed, inspiring. Would it be useful for the RWA to require at least one judge on any panel to be someone who never, ever reads in that genre?
Of course, I’m not sure whether any solution we come up with here is going to trump the fact that, if I understand correctly, the nominations themselves are not screened. Or is there some sort of screening at this level which could be applied?
Dear Urgh – such a lovely name!
Actually those are good ideas for a screening question:
“Does this story occur in the context of mass murder, hate crime or war crimes?”
I am a happy reader of MM novels. My thinking was that if people are prepared to throw away their own children onto the street because they are gay, (and we know this is the reality), they would find MM novels confrontingly offensive.
I was also thinking that in the judging process, there could be an opportunity for a judge to submit a page or so under the heading “why this novel is so hideously ghastly it should not be considered for an RiTA”, which other judges could then consider and agree/not agree with. So then the screening would not involve someone reading 2000 novels. I used the strong words on purpose.
Sorry Ugh! I mispelled your name!
Just read in Newsweek that Vox Day and co are being Vox Dayish about Sarah and Sarah’s letter to RWA about all this. Some accuse her of being a social justice warrier. (some other idiot called SBTB “cat lady central” which made me snort giggle).
– Being called out by Vox Day means you are doing something right.
– SJW is a pejorative made up by conservative bigoted men who object to having their freedom to be offensive curtailed. If one is so labeled, one should wear it with pride.
-Go Sarah! (that’s Australian Encouragement by the way)
-I”ve fantasised about going onto amazon and goodroods and going boo! hiss! all over this book, but I do not believe I can do this in good conscience without actually reading the book, and I don’t want to.
Cats are awesome. Romances with Nazi heroes are not. One would think that Nazis=bad would be something of a consensus claim, but I guess not.
Here is a blog post by Sunita about all of this. She notes other romance MCs who are German/Nazis.
https://readerwriterville.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/nazis-heroes-in-romance-novels/
Now it’s gone truly viral: http://www.newsweek.com/bizarre-nazi-love-story-thats-tearing-romance-novel-community-apart-360965
If anyone needs further evidence that the author is truly clueless that she might have caused any offense, because ‘natch she LOVES the Jewish people, just go to her website, which includes posts about her giving away copies of her book in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day to schools and public libraries because it’s such important history!
Oy gevelt, with friends like this ….
I am a Christian who believes that God can forgive anything. However, I was repulsed by the story as given in the review. I was shouting “no! No! No!while reading it.
I recently heard an author give a synopses of a book that has a Jewish Vampire Nazi Hunter going after a German vampire of the Holocaust. I wanted to ask why she didn’t just make the characters human. For some reason I can’t accept a Jewish vampire any more than a can a true romance between a Jewish prisoner and the Kommandant of a death camp.
From what the plot seems to ensure this is incredibly offensive, disrespectful, and disgusting, and the approach this has towards the holocaust, its survivors, and Nazis is tremendously terrifying. In no way, absolutely NO WAY, should such a thing be ROMANTICIZED. Although it would be sweet to think people were able to recover, find love, move on, be happy, this does none of that.
Instead this pits a Jewish woman in a camp notoriously known for being atrocious killing hundreds of thousands of people, who is blonde haired and blue eyed which just seems to push so many no buttons. Oh, so her Nazi lover (see more rapist) can find her conventionally attractive to an agenda set by an horrific madman who committed genocide? Really appropriate. She then abandons her faith for Christianity (which is bullshit, I don’t want to read a disgusting novel about converting and brainwashing people to Christianity when people like the KKK are around) despite the fact many Jews DIED just for being Jewish themselves and that is just all kinds of wrong.
Not to mention you saw a Nazi who allowed thousands to die as redeemable enough to find romance, despite an intense power imbalance from the looks of it, letting her watch over him as he murders her kind, somehow expecting all this to change her faith? Seeing as she’s his subordinate, seems any romance would be rape and any love that could come out of it formed entirely of Stockholm syndrome.
It is simply inappropriate to write about this. Genocide isn’t something you spin a romance out of. A Jew and Nazi romance isn’t the same as a magical book where a witch-hunter and a witch could fall in love. Fantasy is not real. This WAS. The victims who died were real. The Jews who survived are real and the Nazi’s who committed atrocious crimes ARE NOT supposed to be good, beloved protagonists or healthy romance options.
You should of looked up facts. You should’ve seen the numbers of Jews killed, gays etc., the vast number of Christians (yes, the people you are trying to spread your weird Christian opinion of) also died for sheltering them. Good Christians. Good Christians respecting other peoples religions. Protecting their lives. Good Christians who aren’t writing a weird agenda bullshit novel that is entirely inappropriate to write. All that happened there should say that this is something that should not be written about like this.
It doesn’t help your position — with which I basically agree– to slam Christianity. Calling Christianity BS is not helping your cause. There are nasty people around of all religious persuasions. While I do think God can save everyone, being saved doesn’t mean one doesn’t pay the price or reap consequences of one’s sins on earth. Even forgiven sins have consequences and must be paid for. I haven’t read the book so don’t know if the man faced a firing squad at the end– as he should have– I found the story as given in the reviews to be enough to make me want to vomit. In the story of Esther, Esther went to the king, she didn’t fall in love with the man who built the gallows and tricked the King into signing a decree allowing the killing of all the Jews. H was hung on his own gallows. The main male character of this book should have suffered the same fate as the Jews.
For those of you who are following this, who like me, are not enmeshed in social media, here is a detailed read of the book, with links to other detailed reads and analysis:
https://instalove.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/for-such-a-time-snark/
I really valued the detailed reading – it clarifiied issues as to whether or not she converted, for instance.
Oh my gosh, the closer reading rendered the book even more horrific to me. On DearAuthor the reviewers mentioned having the greeblies (my word, not theirs) at having the book pop up in their kindle contents and being confronted by the image.