Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Level Best Books, and author Stacy Kean for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

The Nazi Housewife of Queens, New York is a historical fiction book based on the real-life of Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan. Hermine was a guard at several Nazi concentration camps with a terrible reputation. Much like what I learned in Nazis at the Watercooler, she managed to escape punishment for her crimes other than a light prison sentence, until she was tracked down in the 1960s by Simon Wiesenthal, and the true depth of her crimes became known.

In The Nazi Housewife of Queens, New York we meet two women. Both were born in Austria. Helma Braun comes from a Roman Catholic family who resents the Jews in their midst and is eager to embrace the Nazi message. Following the war, she marries an American soldier and becomes an American citizen, living a quiet life in Queens, New York. Hannah Goldberg left Vienna at a young age with her family to live with their grandmother in France, thinking they would be safe. This only delayed the inevitable. Hannah was the only member of her family to survive the war. She, too, is living in Queens, New York with her husband David and their children when she reads a story about a notoriously cruel prison guard from one of the concentration camps she was held in living nearby.

Up until now, Hannah struggled quite a bit in life. Although she and David had managed to build a good life, she takes valium and other medication to deal with anxiety. She feels disconnected from her children. David has always resisted talking about what happened to either of them during the war, preferring to “put it behind them.” Once Hannah reads about Helma Braun, though, she cannot think of anything else.

The book takes the reader through Hannah’s life during the war and what she endured. Although Hannah is a fictional character, what she experiences is based on actual events that came out at the real-life trial. I can’t imagine anyone not being horrified by what she experiences. Once Hannah is able to begin to confront those memories, she decides she needs to tell her story. With the help of a friend who is a lawyer, she makes the acquaintance of a man in the Justice Department and tells her story. Through the years, he works tirelessly to try to bring a case against Helma. It’s an uphill battle as people seem to want to forget about the War and what happened during it. Eventually, however, West Germany decided to prosecute Helma and others who committed atrocities at the camps.

The Nazi Housewife of Queens, New York isn’t an easy book to read. The Holocaust was a dark time in our history and the horrors detailed in this book are mind-numbing. I always find it hard to believe humans can be so cruel to each other, but these days we see how easily people can dehumanize those they don’t like. The book skips back and forth between when Hannah first learns about Helma’s presence in New York, not far from where she lives to the past, and what Hannah went through during the war. It flows very well and I had no problems following it. The characters are portrayed quite well. The guards at the prison aren’t just monsters, they are also people, and they don’t see those they are sending to the gas chambers as being human like them.

Even following the war, Helma does not give up her idea of a master race and that Jews are vermin, even though she’s married to a former American soldier. She has learned to reign in her temper, but she never seems to grasp that her actions were wrong then and the atrocities she committed were against people. Some of what she does would be horrific if it were done to animals as well. Yet she cares about her dogs more than she does the people she sent to their deaths.

Hannah’s story is good as she eventually comes to terms with what happened during the war. She travels to Germany to testify against Helma with her son, and later on learns the truth about what happened to her family home in Vienna as well as her grandmother and her house in France. Is justice served? Maybe, maybe not. Hannah must also come to terms with that.

I highly recommend The Nazi Housewife of Queens, New York. It’s well done as being based on actual events and follows a lot of what actually did happen to Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan. It’s a fascinating story of the lives both of these women led, and how different they were despite coming from the same place. It’s also a lesson in what happens when you dehumanize people, something we could learn a lot from right now.