The German Sisters

On the eve of WWI, two Berlin sisters find themselves on opposite sides of the war. One falls under the Führer’s spell—the other flees, putting an ocean and decades of silence between them. A child remains their last, secret bond.

Gerda is thirteen when Hitler takes office; her sister Ilse, eleven. While Gerda grows disillusioned by Nazism, Ilse becomes a fervent follower: The Führer’s voice on the radio is like a drug to her. Politics becomes a wedge between them. 

At fifteen, Ilse is chosen for Year on the Land—catchphrase Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church)—a rural indoctrination program designed to boost the Aryan birth rate. There, she falls in love with a boy from a nearby camp and becomes pregnant. When the boy is expelled, Ilse begins to fear consequences.

Meanwhile, Gerda has decided to flee Germany. As she and her husband are boarding a train, Ilse surprises her at the station, handing her a basket through the train window. As the train pulls away, Gerda opens the basket and is shocked to discover—a baby.

Years after the war, Ilse confronts her schoolgirl self, naively caught up in fascism’s false promises, and resolves to track down her sister. What will happen when she finds the daughter she gave away? 

Emotionally resonant and deeply relevant, this evocative novel offers a window into the experiences of millions of Germans under Hitler—their indoctrination, resistance, and searing regrets. The German Sisters explores how ordinary lives are transformed by extraordinary times—and whether love can survive our deepest betrayals.

• “The German Sisters is a gift: A deeply felt story of sisterhood, war, authoritarianism, and betrayal. Helen Klein Ross is an impeccable writer who brings her great intelligence and heart to every page.” 
  Jenny Jackson, New York Times Bestselling author of The Shampoo Effect and Pineapple Street
• “Vivid and compelling, The German Sisters conjures the complexities of a family sundered by Hitler's rise. In this moving and memorable novel, Helen Klein Ross brilliantly captures the sisters' tumultuous trajectories, and the consequences, across generations, of their choices.”
  Claire Messud, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman Upstairs and This Strange Eventful History
• "In this timely novel, Helen Klein Ross makes history intimate, tracing the point at which a nation’s lies become a family’s secrets. Refusing the comfort of dividing the past neatly into the guilty and the innocent, she shows how ordinary lives become entangled with evil through the most human of hungers — for belonging, purpose, safety, and love. The past can be renamed, concealed, even scratched out of a family photograph, but never entirely erased. Gripping, clear-eyed, and morally searching."
  Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train and The Foursome
• “Immersive, heart-stopping and beautifully written account of the everyday choices that will force two young German sisters apart and ask us all to confront the impossible and the unforgivable.”
  Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Before the War and The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
• “With astonishing immediacy and gripping intensity, Helen Klein Ross portrays two sisters in Nazi Germany who confront the rise of fascism in radically different ways. I'm in awe of Ross's gift for weaving her vast historical knowledge into the small details of everyday life. I felt I was walking side by side with Gerda and Ilse as they were swept into the turmoil of the 1930s and '40s. The issues they grappled with continue to resonate today. The German Sisters kept me up reading late into the night, determined learn their stories.” 
  Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire and Ashton Hall
• “In this tender family saga Helen Klein Ross encapsulates the literal life and death consequences of authoritarian rule. This story tugs at your heart strings as entire destinies, diasporas and familial bonds are upended. The German Sisters is a profound novel of irreversible loss and the hard, human work required of family members in search of redemption.” 
  Hafeez Lakhani, author of Abundance
• “Steeped in history and urgently relevant today, The German Sisters is a richly crafted novel about how external events impact private lives. The story is at once an empathetic exploration of sisterly and familial devotion, forgiveness, and the love that lives in silences, yet sweeping in its historical scope and implications. Sisters Ilse and Gerda, caught in the cataclysm of Hitler’s Germany, discover that the difficult moral choices they made then—following very different paths—are the legacy they pass down through generations of their family. The German Sisters reminds us that history lives in what we inherit and what we choose to do with that inheritance.” 
  Cynthia Reeves, author of The Last Whaler and Falling Through the New World