Audio Review: At the Wolf’s Table by Rosella Postorino, Leah Janeczko (Translator)

A provocative and moving historical novel based on the true story of a young woman who moved to a village near the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's secret headquarters, and became one of his food tasters.

Germany, 1943. Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer’s parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Alone, she has little choice but to leave war-torn Berlin behind and live with her in-laws in a village near the Wolfschanze, the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s hidden headquarters. Convinced that the enemy wants to poison him, Hitler conscripts ten women, including Rosa, to be his food tasters.

Even though food is a luxury, eating the decadent feasts Hitler will soon be served is an act of torture--after each meal, the women must wait an hour to see if they will die. Every minute seems like an eternity. None of the women are allowed to meet Hitler, none can enter the Wolfschanze, but the Führer is a constant presence. He is in every conversation, in Rosa's thoughts, and forever on the radio. He looms large above them all, like some kind of deity.

As the war outside goes from bad to worse, so do the lives of the ten women trapped in the tasting room, forced to eat what may kill them. Rosa's friends are keeping explosive secrets, the vindictive SS officer put in charge of the tasters takes a special liking to her, and Rosa must figure out how she can stay alive as it becomes clear that she and her friends, her Hitler, everyone she knows, are on the wrong side of history.

I am kicking myself for not putting down where I heard about this book. This book blew me away. I don’t think that I have ever read a story the poses the Nazis or the German population viewpoint of  World War 2. I used to think that I did not WANT to recognize the Germans during that time as”humans” because of what they did. I think anyone that falls into the category of people that were all shipped to the camps feels the same way. I may not be Jewish, but they also sent Deaf people. I remember when I went to the Holocaust Museum in DC and saw the disabled part of it, and there were a LOT of deaf people that ended up in the camps. It is was easier just to put all the Germans into one big group and hate them.

When my library hold came in ( i had forgotten all about it as it seems I put it on hold in January and just now my turn came up.) I read the synopsis and wondered what the hell past Hillary thought when she put it on hold. Curiosity got the best of me, so I started listening and OMG it was sooooo different than what I anticipated.

First of all, Rosa, the one who is “telling” the story and is a German, makes the reader sympathize with her. I mean the Nazi forced her to be Hitler Food Taster. I never even knew there WAS such a thing, but it makes sense as Hitler was very paranoid. From the starts, we see that she has no choice well, she DOES, but it is like the old cliche, between a rock and a hard place. She chooses the option that would allow her to live. I think that most people would choose life. And being a food taster is not a job anyone would want. No one WANTS to be poisoned, but as we see, she did not have the luxury of choosing, so she decided to eat and risk it rather than being punished by the police. I don’t know about YOU, but if it were up to me, I would choose the least painful option. I have never been shot so I can’t say for sure, but I would guess that eating food that may or may not is poisoned would be far less painful.

As the story goes on, we gain an intimate look at the food tasters lives. If you are like me, then you just groped all Germans evil people and then the Lord that you are an American. However, once I started listening to this book, it forced me to confront my “prejudice,” and I realized that nothing is entirely white or black or wholly good or evil. Everything is in shades of grey. I still think that Hitler was insane and f he had had the proper treatments then maybe the whole WW2 stuff would never have happened BUT it did. And it is very easy to look at people such as the food tasters as being too friendly with Hitler and the Nazis, but when you listen to the audiobook, you will come to realize that for many they did not have a choice.

Another thing that had always puzzled me is when Germans tell everyone that the reason they went along with Hitler so readily is that they wanted to be a “good German” I always wanted to call bullshit, but after listening to this book I can see why and how. Germany suffered a humiliating defeat and some serious repercussions after World War One. So when what appeared to be a savior named Hitler showed up promising to put Germany back on the map most people were like YAY!!! My initial knee jerk reaction was like you would follow that crazy man? Then I had a terrifying realization. That is happening right here in the USA. I am sure that some people would be mad at the fact that I compared Hitler to Trump, but once you think on it and go deep, you can see the similarities.

At The Wolf’s Table turned out to be a book that I have started recommending over and over. It gave a peek into the “real” lives of Germany in that time from a GERMAN practice, and I think we owe it to them to at least try and listen to their side and not be so quick to claim that all German was horrible mass murderers.

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