Review: Portrait of a dissenter
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 26, 2012
It's always fascinating to read about the people who overtly or covertly refuse to go along with an immoral regime, whether the regime is a government, an organization, or a movement. Once Helga learns that the terrible smell coming from the "protection camp" is not what she's been told it is, she blatantly uses her rank and family position to smuggle Jewish children out of the camp and to safety, right under the nose of the camp commandant.The story is framed by the story of an American soldier who comes looking for her during peacetime. While the narrative frame is a romance, I definitely wouldn't classify the overall story as a romance, however.A sensitive telling of the horrors of genocide, the justified paranoia of the French Resistance, the blind viciousness of reprisals in which victims turn into victimizers, and the people who refuse to be complicit.