Kommandant's Girl (Jenoff)

The Kommandant's Girl 
Pam Jenoff, 2007
Mira Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778323426


Summary
Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days Emma's husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground, leaving her imprisoned within the city's decrepit, moldering Jewish ghetto.

But, then, in the dead of night, the resistance smuggles her out. Taken to Krakow to live with Jacob's Catholic cousin, Krysia, Emma takes on a new identity as Anna Lipowski, a gentile.

Emma's already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who hires her to work as his assistant. Urged by the resistance to use her position to access details of the Nazi occupation, Emma must compromise her safety—and her marriage vows—in order to help Jacob's cause.

As the atrocities of war intensify, so does Emma's relationship with the Kommandant, building to a climax that will risk not only her double life, but also the lives of those she loves. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; M.A., Cambridge University; J.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Currently—lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey


Pam Jenoff was born in Maryland and raised outside Philadelphia. She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Cambridge University in England.

Upon receiving her master's in history from Cambridge, she accepted an appointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. The position provided a unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government, including helping the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims secure their memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, observing recovery efforts at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and attending ceremonies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II at sites such as Bastogne and Corregidor.

Following her work at the Pentagon, Pam moved to the State Department. In 1996 she was assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland. It was during this period that Pam developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust. Working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland, Pam developed close relations with the surviving Jewish community.

Pam left the Foreign Service in 1998 to attend law school and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked for several years as a labor and employment attorney both at a firm and in-house in Philadelphia and now teaches law school at Rutgers.

Pam is the author of The Kommandant's Girl, which was an international bestseller and nominated for a Quill award, as well as The Diplomat's Wife, The Ambassador's Daughter, Almost Home, A Hidden Affair and The Things We Cherished.

She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three children. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.)  With luminous simplicity, Jenoff's breathtaking debut chronicles the life of a young Jewish bride during the Nazi occupation of Krakow, Poland, in WWII.... [A] handsome Nazi is so impressed by [Emma's] German language skills (and her beauty) that he asks her to become his personal assistant.... [T]he chemistry between them presents challenges that test her loyalties to Jacob and her heart. This is historical romance at its finest.
Publishers Weekly


During a dinner party, Emma/Anna is introduced to Nazi Kommadant Richwalder.... [and] becomes intimate with the enemy to gather information. In her moving first novel, Jenoff offers an insightful portrait of people forced into an untenable situation and succeeds in humanizing the unfathomable as well as the heroic. —Patty Engleman
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. Did you find Emma's choices believable? Which ones? Why?

2. Do you think the ends that Emma's was seeking justified the means of her choices and actions?

3. How did Emma's character change/evolve throughout the story?

4. What was the most difficult challenge faced by Emma in the ook?

5. What role does Krysia play in the story? Lukasz?

6. Do you agree with Emma's decision to keep the paternity of her unborn child a secret from her husband? Why or why not?

7. Emma kept secrets from both of the men in her life—the Kommandant and Jacob. Do you think real intimacy is possible in such  circumstances?

8. What is it that you think Emma really wanted?

9. How do you think Marta felt about Emma?

10. Where do you think Emma winds up one month after the end of the book? One year? Five years?

11. Who is your favorite character in the book and why?

12. What is the central theme of the book and how did you feel about it?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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