The Last Train to London

 The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton    464 pages

I expected a lot after reading the Amazon blurb for this book: “a pre-World War II-era story with the emotional resonance of “Orphan Train” and “All the Light We Cannot See,” centering on the Kindertransports. Those are two of my favorite novels in recent years.

This novel covers 1936 to 1940 as Truus Wijsmuller and her efforts to smuggle Jewish children out of Nazi Germany. The story is told through two viewpoints and short chapters. Truus and fifteen-year-old Stephan Neuman.  

All Stephan want to do is write plays, go to the theater and hang out with his new Zofie-Helene, a Christian girl he meets through his barber. Zofie is a math prodigy. I didn’t understand what she was saying half of the time, and I think contributed to my unfavorable reponse to the story.

As the story opens, Stephan and Zofie live in Vienna, a city on the edge with the imminent threat of a Nazi invasion. The wander through the city, mostly through a complex cave system, popping up here and there, that seemed a tad ludacrious to me.

Truus, a member of the Dutch resistance, begins to smuggle children out of Germany, making more and more trips into the occupied country. Maybe this is my twenty-first century perspective talking, but I found that the way she instructed all the children to call her Tante Truus (Aunt Truus) creepy. I understand that it was necessary given the unforeseeable encouters they would have, but it made me extremely uneasy. Also, I found her sections lacking tension; she never seemed to be in real danger, even when she was escorting thirty children across the border. And that is my biggest complaint of this novel---lack of tension. Never did I feel thatStephan, his five-year-old brother Walter, Zofie, Truus or the children were in life-or-death situations.

Because of the short chapters, I never felt a real connection to any of the characters.  The most positive aspect of ready this lengthy novel is that the name Truus Wijsmuller may now be recognized for the great work that she did. Truus is credited with saving over 10,000 Jewish children from the Nazi horrors.

Due to its lack of tension and the inability to make me connect with the character,  “The Last Train to London”  receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.