The Plum Tree: An Emotional and Heartbreaking Novel of WW2 Germany and the Holocaust Paperback – Print, December 24, 2012

Ellen Marie Wiseman's riveting debut novel allows the reader to peer into the life of a German teenager and her family in World War II torn Nazi Germany. The author states that the book was inspired by her own mother's actual experiences in Germany, and by the author's numerous trips to the Fatherland visiting relatives. This is a dynamite novel about a German girl falling in love with a Jew. The novel reveals three engrossing forms of terror during the years 1938 through 1945. The first was the ravaging of the Jews and ordinary German citizens by the SS Troopers. One of the books Wiseman read pertaining to this was 'Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich' by Alison Owings. The second torment experienced by the German families was the U.S. bombing campaign of German cities, backed up by the book 'The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945' by Jorg Friedrich. The third affliction in the story discloses how the non-Nazi German civilians were treated after the war's end. This was verified by James Bacque's 'Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950' . This was an eye-opening trifecta of maladies combined in one novel. This reviewer wonders what Wiseman will do for an encore?The milieu for this novel is Hessental, Germany, an ordinary peaceful German village of mostly hard working poor families. The focus is on the Bolz family and their struggle to put food on the table. Our heroine, Christine and her mutti ( mother ) work on the estate of the Bauermans, a rich Jewish family. Christine and Isaac Bauerman are in love and plan to announce that fact at a December party at the Bauermans. Before that can happen, Hitler issues orders that Germans can no longer work for Jews, radios are taken away and replaced with propaganda channeled radios, Jews are no longer allowed in public buildings, and the mandatory greeting is now required to be "Heil Hitler". On page 54, Christine and Isaac wonder " Will we ever be allowed to be together, to live like everyone else, happily married, with a house and children, to enjoy the most basic human rights?" This is a very sad novel. Slowly but surely, The Jews of Hessental are shipped by train to Dachau. On page 150, Christine thinks she saw Isaac and his family on the Dachau train and thinks to herself " He can't be inside one of those boxcars, she thought. He's too smart and too beautiful to be carted away like an animal. His father is a lawyer, his mother an aristocrat." This where the story takes "the brakes off" and rumbles through 387 pages of breathtaking drama!For a fledgling author without any creative writing background, I thought her characterization was superlative. I had plenty of empathy for vater ( father ), oma ( grandma ), opa ( grandpa ), and even the reluctant Nazi, Lagerkommandant Grunstein of the Dachau Camp. The sprinkling-in of German words, titles, and names was expertly done, such as; scheissekopf ( s***head ), gruppenfuhrer ( group leader ), sonderkommandos ( work units of Nazi death camp prisoners ), and blockfuhrer ( a block leader in the death camps ). At one point in this marvelous novel, Christine wonders why prisoners would be shot at a death camp: " Why would they shoot those men when they have an efficient method of extermination right here?" The flavor of the novel is exactly how Wiseman states it is on her website: " I love reading and writing about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Fiction offers us a rare chance to slip into the lives of others, and to ask ourselves how we would react under challenging conditions, be it during WWII, the witch craze in Europe, or the Great Depression." This is a love story, historical fiction, and sad drama all rolled into one tumultous story. I highly recommend this first time novel by Ellen Marie Wiseman. I guarantee her second novel will not be rejected 72 times!

I read for relaxation and historical fiction is a favorite genre of mine. THE PLUM TREE is superb historical fiction, but so realistic and told as though everything was happening before my eyes, that it was totally unsettling. Had I not had faith in the writer to bring Christine and Isaac together in the end, I would not have kept on reading. (My faith was rewarded…and along the way I learned much more about the holocaust than I wanted to know.) I marvel at this author’s ability to include so much detail in her novel and still create a page turner that keeps one reading long after he should have closed the book and gone to bed. She knows how to dig out the facts, absorb the settings and their unique characteristics and then create a riveting tale. As I read THE PLUM TREE, often with my heart beating as though it wanted to pound its way out of my chest, I flagged a number of passages that I especially enjoyed so I could go back and re-read them. For example: “As the women washed the dishes, the roar of the growing flames absorbed the weighted silence of the kitchen.” Or “When she heard the name Dachau, a black dagger of horror plunged deep into her chest, where it lodged and throbbed, causing shock waves of fire and ice to shoot through her veins.” And finally, “The train stopped outside the building, pistons pounding, like the giant, beating heart of a mammoth black creature fighting its way through the very walls of the building, so it could eat them alive.” Readers who enjoy being swept into a story where the characters are true-to-life with futures in jeopardy from people and situations out of their control will appreciate this story as well as the author’s later novels, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND and COAL RIVER._Hope Irvin Marston, author of AGAINST THE TIDE: THE VALOR OF MARGARET WILSON

The descriptions are so realistic I could see and feel the anguish. I will read all of her books with emotions I didn't know I had

My husband was a small German boy during WWII. His father was in a POW camp for 7 years. He shared tears and emotional experiences with me during our 50 year marriage. I didn't understand sometimes why some things really affected him, until I read this book then my tears had no end but so did my understanding..I realized the things he had told me were not just relating an experience one might see in a movie but life and true pain he and his family experienced. It didn't mater that at 18 years old he came alone to the US..the pain he experienced came with him until the end of his life. I finally felt the experiences he had shared with me. Thru this book I could feel the life long pain my sweetheart endured. The Germans were the enemy but their children often were the victims. I purchased 3 copies of this book and gifted them to my 3 adult sons along with a letter explaining the feelings this book evoked in me. Also told them that they would understand their Dad a lot better thru this book.

Wonderful ready. I’m really enjoying Ellen Wiseman’s work. She’s through and her writing provokes emotion. I definitely recommend. Thank you!

Ellen Marie Wiseman has the tremendous ability to make her readers feel "they are there" or are living these moments as we read the lines. She also has researched so tremendously to be so accurate in portraying the situations. Never did I imagine it was as bad as it truly was. My eyes were opened. I once had a brass commemorate bullet from this war, that my late father had to make in a factory...when the war ended he was given a brass replica. To me as a young person it didn't mean a whole lot...it sat in a corner for much of my life til a German gal and her husband came to visit...She was in tears immediately, she asked me to remove it...I did...she said it reminded her of what she witnessed in a small town in Germany...as a kid....as it was nothing to be displayed. I put it away in fact I don't have it now. This book made me realize exactly how she felt...and how the memories were so drastic she couldn't hardly remain in our home. After reading The Plum Tree...I know better. Thank you Ellen Marie.... Sharon Kresak

Read that if you want to read cheap romance, not if you want to read a good historical novel on WWII. How can one use nazism as a decor for a love story ? It’s shameful. And the mixture between a few German words and English is just ridiculous !

These are the words Christine Bölz's father tells her. And it's just as true for WWI and WWII as it is for today.This heart-breaking, incredibly beautiful novel of love and hate, hope and sorrow, and good and evil will stay with me for a very long time. Isaac, Christine, Oma, Mutti and so many other characters feel so dear to me, as if they were family. Clearly, the author did an incredible job of making me care deeply about these characters. I was so invested in them and in finding out how their stories would turn out that I kept going back to the book again and again, eager to read just one more chapter!Some other reviewers have said that they found she was too descriptive -- too much showing and not telling -- but I feel like this is a refrain often heard from people who are used to reading a certain lower quality of novel. I hope that anyone who reads this can appreciate just how beautiful the author's prose is, and just how wonderful her descriptive power is -- not just for places and people but for feelings and emotions, too.There were, I have to admit, some things that took me out of the novel and made me question the author's research. For example, how can a castle be both 2,000 years old in the forties (that would make it build in BC 55-ish?) and be Medieval in origin (500-1500 AD)? On page 309, at the bottom of the first page of Chapter 31, there is a period where it should have been a comma, which should have been caught by the editor.I think more should have been made of Maria's death. It seemed rushed. And I feel cheated that Isaac and Christine came close to making love a few times but we never got to read about it happening. Isaac was so selfless in not giving in and making love to Christine the first two times, and then Christine was smart enough to stop him when they were in the kitchen after he'd had his bath. But we get one and a half pages of their happy ending, only one and a half! I realise it's not a historical romance but a historical fiction, but I think if the reader is as invested as I was in their love story, we should have gotten more.Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to anyone. The world is going through terrible times, and now more than ever we need to read and remember stories about WWI and WWII, and about the Holocaust especially. Be they fictionialised portrayals or memoirs, the words in them help us to remember the souls who were lost and do everything we can to make sure something like that never happens again.

A good read. How some of the Germans saw the Nazi horror at their own front door. Have felt it from a different point of view even though the book was rather amateurish, refreshing to understand how some Germans were terrified.

This is a WWII story, but from the German perspective. It's about a poor family in a small town in Germany and how they have to live under Nazi rule. It gives new insight on how people had to cope with new rules and regulations that evolved seemly overnight. It's main character 'Christine' falls in love with a Jewish boy and that love brings her much heartache, it also affects her family. The author bases her book on actual events from her own mother's and grandparents history as well as further research. Very good book and an easy read.