Sigrid Schröder is a good German woman. She works as a
typist while her husband serves on the front line in
Russia. She lives with her mother-in-law to economize. She
donates to the war effort. She goes through her days with
her head down, no longer seeing the destruction around her,
but when a young girl from her building begs for help,
Sigrid can't ignore the plea. That one small action sparks
Sigrid's repressed passion and she can no longer live with
the guilt of complacency.
CITY OF WOMEN is difficult to read because the subject
matter is distressing and because of the ambiguity of the
characters and their actions. Nothing is black or white but
all the varying shades of grey in between to match the
perpetually grey, winter sky of the story. I find stories
like this hard to get through and I need to put it down and
walk away from it occasionally. Not because it's badly
written but because it's painful to put myself into that
time and place with these people for long periods of time.
Set in Berlin during World War II, the story asks the
haunting questions of what is the right thing to do. The
ambiguous nature of this question leaves many grey areas
and because there is no one clear answer, the characters
are hard to connect with. The storytelling method leaves
many of the internal thoughts out, giving a linear action
of events which allows the reader to interpret the actions
for themselves. This is wonderful for the speed and
fluidity of the story, but creates a distance between
reader and character.
Sigrid is a very difficult character to connect with. She's
emotionally isolated with no true friends of confidants.
Her actions are not always morally sound and her
motivations are questionable. I didn't find her likable,
but I did find her interesting. Interesting enough that I
had to find out what her choice would be. Even at the end
of the story, I didn't like her but I did respect her
choice.
CITY OF WOMEN isn't for the faint of heart or for those who
see the world in clearly defined lines of what is right and
wrong, but it is a story that will move you, break your
heart, and reaffirm your faith in humanity. It will also
leave you awake wondering what you would have done.
It is 1943—the height of the Second World War. With the men
taken by the army, Berlin has become a city of women. And
while her husband fights on the Eastern Front, Sigrid
Schröder is, for all intents and purposes, the model
soldier’s wife: She goes to work every day, does as much
with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her
meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific
immoralities of the regime.
But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a
woman who dreams of her former Jewish lover, who is now lost
in the chaos of the war.
Sigrid’s tedious existence is turned upside down when she
finds herself hiding a mother and her two young
daughters—whom she believes might be her lover’s family—and
she must make terrifying choices that could cost her everything.
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