Hermann’s Ruhe by Karin Harrison is a world war II story told through a mother’s eyes of how they survived. It is by Karin Harrison who was a child during world war II. It is set in Germany and follows the families hardships for years. The family and town in this book are fiction. Helen is the mother of three kids in a town in Germany that is run by Nazi Germany. Helen has to help her family survive the bombings and the treatment from the soldiers. They have to survive starvation and all the loss they are surrounded with. They flee to their families cabin in the woods called Hermann’s Ruhe. Hermann is the grandpa in the story. The cabin is in the woods by there town and was made by Hermann and Helen’s husband. Helen’s husband is fighting in the war so Helen has to bring up her kids with help from her parents. In their town there are lots of bombings and Nazi’s invading so they have to flee to the cabin. They stay in the cabin for as long as they can but soon the Nazi’s find it and are shooting at them. They all flee to the next town over and have to stay in a church full of people for 7 days. After the 7 days the American troops are taking over and they get to head back to their town. By some miracle their apartment building is still standing even though most of the buildings around it are rubble. They start to rebuild their lives but soon have to deal with starvation and lack of materials such as fire wood. The American troops are no better than the Nazi troops on how they treated these people. Helen has to deal with sexual assault at one point in the book which makes her hate the Americans as much as she hated the Nazi’s. Her son gets a job to help provide for the family and a general from the American troops hears about Hermann's Ruhe from him. He wants to rent it out and will pay Helen for his time there. At first they are apprehensive about him renting it out since he is an American but soon accepts his offer due to the lack of food and materials they have. The book is good but it was very fast pace and didn’t explain some points. Harrison makes such a big point on how bad the church was but barely touched on it. She only wrote a page about it but on the blurb on the back it makes it sound like a very important thing in the story. You can tell this was Harrison’s first novel but besides that it was a good story and told you about what people that weren’t in the holocaust but were in towns were going through. Most books about World War II are about how they survived the holocaust but this one is how people survived everyday life. Hermann's Ruhe is about a family trying to survive the troubles of war even if they aren’t in the middle of it. It helps us understand how war can affect us even if you aren’t in it.
Helen is the mother of three kids in a town in Germany that is run by Nazi Germany. Helen has to help her family survive the bombings and the treatment from the soldiers. They have to survive starvation and all the loss they are surrounded with. They flee to their families cabin in the woods called Hermann’s Ruhe. Hermann is the grandpa in the story. The cabin is in the woods by there town and was made by Hermann and Helen’s husband. Helen’s husband is fighting in the war so Helen has to bring up her kids with help from her parents. In their town there are lots of bombings and Nazi’s invading so they have to flee to the cabin. They stay in the cabin for as long as they can but soon the Nazi’s find it and are shooting at them. They all flee to the next town over and have to stay in a church full of people for 7 days. After the 7 days the American troops are taking over and they get to head back to their town. By some miracle their apartment building is still standing even though most of the buildings around it are rubble. They start to rebuild their lives but soon have to deal with starvation and lack of materials such as fire wood. The American troops are no better than the Nazi troops on how they treated these people. Helen has to deal with sexual assault at one point in the book which makes her hate the Americans as much as she hated the Nazi’s. Her son gets a job to help provide for the family and a general from the American troops hears about Hermann's Ruhe from him. He wants to rent it out and will pay Helen for his time there. At first they are apprehensive about him renting it out since he is an American but soon accepts his offer due to the lack of food and materials they have.
The book is good but it was very fast pace and didn’t explain some points. Harrison makes such a big point on how bad the church was but barely touched on it. She only wrote a page about it but on the blurb on the back it makes it sound like a very important thing in the story. You can tell this was Harrison’s first novel but besides that it was a good story and told you about what people that weren’t in the holocaust but were in towns were going through. Most books about World War II are about how they survived the holocaust but this one is how people survived everyday life.
Hermann's Ruhe is about a family trying to survive the troubles of war even if they aren’t in the middle of it. It helps us understand how war can affect us even if you aren’t in it.