Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Aushwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They intend to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl’s unscheduled train reaches the bomb first.
Gretl is the only survivor. Though spared from the concentration camp, the orphaned German Jew finds herself lost in a country hostile to her people. When Jakób discovers her, guilt and fatherly compassion prompt him to take her in. For three years, the young man and little girl form a bond over the secrets they must hide from his Catholic family.
But she can’t stay with him forever. Jakób sends Gretl to South Africa, where German war orphans are promised bright futures with adoptive Protestant families—so long as Gretl’s Jewish roots, Catholic education, and connections to communist Poland are never discovered. Separated by continents, politics, religion, language, and years, Jakób and Gretl will likely never see each other again. But the events they have both survived and their belief that the human spirit can triumph over the ravages of war have formed a bond of love that no circumstances can overcome.
Amazon.com
The story opens with 6 year old German-Jewish Gretl and her family on a train bound for Auschwitz, trying to find a way off the train. Outside, along the track, is 21 year old Polish resistance fighter Jakob planting bombs to derail an expected German supply train. Only too late does he realize that the train headed his way is actually full of innocent Jewish families. The bomb detonates, train explodes, the smoke clears to reveal the only two survivors from this train -- Gretl and her older sister. Jakob guiltily runs off, not seen by either of the girls. Hours later they are picked up by a local farmer when he sees how sick Gretl's sister is. Gretl's sister doesn't survive. In an strange twist of fate, the farmer's wife turns out to be an aquaintance of Jakob, contacting him to come get this orphaned girl she is unable to care for. Upon arrival, Jakob it is shocked to find it is Gretl, and perhaps largely to ease his guilty conscience, agrees to take Gretl to his family's farm.
Gretl ends up staying with them for a number of years until Jakob's mother decides it has become too expensive and too dangerous (as Gretl is looking more and more German during a very much anti-German time in Poland) to keep the child around. Stressing over the limited amount of alternatives, Jakob hears of a town in South Africa looking German war orphans to boost the population there. Feeling there's nothing better he can offer her, he gets on a train with Gretl to South Africa. Once there, he tells her they must cut off further communication with each other for her safety, that she must go on and have the best life possible from here on out. The story then divides between what happens to the two of them individually as the years pass. Will they ever have a chance to meet up again? You'll have to read to find out :-)
I struggled to get into this book at first, but that could possibly be due to reading it in October when my brain has been eating up all these paranormal and horror stories. It makes it tough to immediately flip over to standard historical fiction. But I was pretty curious about this one, learning that the author herself is a South African novelist -- 8 to her name -- yet this was her first book to ever be published in English. I also liked that the story goes to South Africa during WW2, as it's not a part of the history that is widely taught in school here in the States. I ended up liking this story a good bit, pulled in by a number of elements. Two of the main things I recall:
>> I really liked the way young Gretl kept finding strength in recalling the story Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Not only because I remember myself being enamored with that story when I was little, but the way it kept encouraging her to push through strange or painful experiences with this idea of "This is just like the story" or "Heidi did this, so I can too." I found Gretl's optimism incredibly warm and endearing. Also with Gretl, I found myself really feeling for her, how throughout her whole life she was forced to try to keep so many lies straight for the sake of staying alive! Just keeping all the names she uses throughout the story -- Gretl, Gretz, Gretchen, Grietjie -- was making my head spin!
- >> I found Jakob's constant struggle with trying to be a good man but being forced into difficult positions pretty powerful. Particularly with his political stance. Many of Jakob's friends and neighbors believe that the only way for Poland can win against the German invasion is to join forces with Russia's Red Army. Though Jakob is a resistance fighter, he doesn't agree with joining Russia, he feels it's only potentially swapping one enemy with another. At least he maintains that belief until he gets to Warsaw and sees troops primarily made up of young teens... children, basically... to take on the German troops. After that, he has to reluctantly acknowledge that there might be some truth in the benefits of banding with Russia's army.
The couple downsides to this story for me: a) the pace was a little slow for my liking, and something about the writing, while definitely good, lacked that extra something that kept me glued to the pages and b) I personally felt the back and forth between two of the characters near the end dragged on a bit too long. I thought it was cute in the beginning but by the end I was bored and burnt out of hearing about it, lost interest in how things would turn out. I called the ending within a few chapters of the novel's start, so that part wasn't really a surprise anyway.
If you were a fan of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, I would recommend trying this one on for size. I felt a number of commonalities between the relationships of Gretl / Jakob in The Girl From The Train and Liesel / Max from The Book Thief (at least in the first half of the book). The one similarity that especially stood out to me was when Jakob gets seriously injured and Gretl takes it upon herself to nurse him back to health, much like the way Liesl did for Max. Similar stories, though I personally enjoyed The Book Thief much more.
FTC Disclaimer: TNZ Fiction Guild kindly provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.
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