WHEN WE WERE BRAVE

A triptych of parallel stories that revolve around the horrors of World War II. 

In 1943, Wilhelm Falk is a high-ranking member of the Nazi SS, and in the last 15 months, he’s been witness to unspeakable human suffering. He’s been secretly gathering information about Nazi extermination camps and transmitting it to a trusted friend in America, Pastor Theodore Graf. When the opportunity arises, Falk puts his officer’s uniform on a dead German soldier, purloins his papers, and allows himself to be captured by Allied troops, hopeful that he can somehow make it to the United States. However, he must hide the truth from his fellow POWs, who will surely harm him if they discover his plan. Meanwhile, after young Izaak Tauber’s Jewish father is arrested by Nazis in Amsterdam, his mother, Rachel, realizes that they’re both in danger too. With the help of a mysterious man known as “Fritz the Wanderer,” they plan to escape the Netherlands together—but then Fritz dies, and Izaak and Rachel are sent to a labor camp. In a third story, German Otto Müller moves to Pennsylvania in 1920 and starts a milling business. However, Americans are suspicious of anyone of German descent, and Otto is falsely accused of sedition. He’s arrested, along with his son, Herbert, and held on New York’s Ellis Island in an internment facility. Jay’s (Speaking in Tungs, 2018, etc.) account is impressively ambitious, offering a sprawling view of the wages of war from three distinct perspectives. She ingeniously braids them into a coherent narrative tapestry, and along the way, she realistically describes the human degradation experienced by prisoners in the Nazi camps. However, for those familiar with the genre, this is all well-trod ground, and the prose can be cloyingly overwrought: “He swallowed hard and blinked back tears as his mama rubbed his arm through his thin coat. The trash-filled area around the patio blurred, and he swiped at his eyes.” Also, Jay’s history is less than impeccable; for example, someone who’d once served serious prison time for criticizing Hitler, as Falk had done, would have been an unlikely candidate for the SS.

A melodramatic tale that lacks historical rigor.