Review: 99 Will Never Buy You More
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 28, 2013
Excellent fictional account of love and atrocity, devastation and hope.  Being a young male citizen of Germany following World War I and through World War II had to have had its challenges.  For a man such as Christopher, the best friend of a young Jewish woman, the experience is less than pleasant as he transitions from a peaceful life in Jersey to the life of a rising young SS officer stationed at Auschwitz.After being forced to part from Rebecca, the woman he wanted to marry, Christopher is determined to find her and help her in any way he can.  His experience and emotions are portrayed in the novel as he learns that the resettlement camps are actually Jewish extermination sites--and he is an integral part of the extermination process.  With strong abhorrence for the work, Christopher's initial determination to find Rebecca evolves into a determination to help as many prisoners, particularly children, survive as possible.  He develops plans that appear to serve Hitler, but which results actually justify a small portion of leniency to the prisoners--including stopping the daily summary executions of workers in front of their peers for trumped-up charges, trying to secretly save a young girl who manages to live through the gas chambers (my only criticism would be the failure to describe how the restroom necessity for the young girl is addressed), developing good relationships with those German officials that can help him with illicit dealings, bribing other officers for information even as he ostensibly starts an anti-corruption campaign.  As he learns of Rebecca's fate, he becomes more determined to help where he can, determining that if he were caught, he would be executed--but it was better to lose his life and let others live, particularly when life without Rebecca is worth little in any case.This book is an excellent novelizaiton of a time when horrific challanges had to be surmounted in order to survive, and this story of Christopher and Rebecca provides an excellent account of the historic tragedy.  It provides an overview of history's timeline, and it is a good introduction to the holocaust for those who have yet to fully comprehend its implications.  While the horrors are not something children should read without first gaining some knowledge of life's horrible realities, the book cannot be recommended highly enough for mature readers.