The Prisoner's Wife

 The Prisoner’s Wife by Maggie Brooks   400 pages

 It’s hard to imagine that with the plethora of World War II historical novels on the market that an author could stumble upon something new.  Luckily for readers everywhere, author Maggie Brooks has done just that. She first heard about it from an elderly man, Sidney Reed, in an elevator of all places. He told her he “had been in a Nazi prison camp where they sheltered a Czech woman disguised as a British solider.”  Brooks was hooked and met with Reed a few days later for the whole story. Reed wasn’t able to give full details, like the woman’s name, but the things he did tell her---like the names of the camps—were verifiable.  That information alone was enough to set Brooks on a research journey like no other.

It seemed that a British soldier, whom she called Bill, had been captured by the Nazis, in Czechoslovakia. He and other prisoners were sent to work on a farm, helping bring in the crops and other assorted jobs. Only an old woman, her daughter and her young son were left to do the work. The daughter was given the name of Izabela, or Izzy. The two fall in love. Izzy helps Bill escape, they marry. Izzy disguises herself as a British soldier so that if they are captured, they can stay together.

Of course, they are captured, bur her disguise works. The main focus of the story is how Bill and some of the other prisoners guard her. How they help and guard her during her periods, showers and using the latrine leaves little detail to the imagination. Horrifying reading, but this reader was unable to put the book down.

While the details of everyday life in the camps is nothing when it comes to the Long March West  they are forced to endure from Eastern Europe to Germany---500 miles with little clothing and even less food---in January through March of 1945. The weather is horrifyingly cold, snow falls almost all the time, and sometimes they are forced to sleep outdoors. Again, the descriptions of the cold, the hunger pains, the walking with frozen feet, the dysentery, the stomach cramps, the bare clothing are not left to the imagination.

I’ve read an enormous amount of World War II historical fiction, but this is the most detailed about the atrocities the POWs faced. I highly, highly recommend this book, and “The Prisoner’s Wife” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.