December 1944. The Germans are coming. The priest of Stoumont, in the Ardennes, has only one concern: to save Renee, a Jewish orphan hidden in the rectory. And, suddenly, the miracle: a jeep with two American soldiers on board stops in front of the church and he, in a hurry, entrusts them with the little one. However, those two soldiers only have American uniforms. In reality, they are called Hans and Mathias and are Nazi spies.
Once in a clearing, Hans takes the gun and pushes the girl forward, in the snow. Renee knows she is about to die, yet she is not afraid. His gaze goes beyond Hans and he notes on Mathias.
It's a deep, courageous look. The look of those who have seen everything and no longer fear anything.
Mathias raises the gun. And shoot. But it is Hans who dies in the snow, with a flash of disbelief in his eyes.
Mathias and Renee are only facing war, a war in which it is now impossible for them to distinguish between friends and enemies. And the two will walk together in that war, towards a salvation that seems more elusive day by day. They will meet generous and ferocious, loving and cruel people. But, above all, they will discover that their bond - the bond between a Reich soldier and a Jewish girl - is the only thing that can give them hope to stay alive...
There are moments in life when we are forced to confront the inevitable. Moments in which everything seems to be decided. Yet the novel by Emmanuelle Pirotte reminds us that it's never too late to change our destiny. Even in the darkest hour, it takes only one brave choice to cross the border that separates life from death, good from evil, the torturer from the hero. A glance at the snow we carry in our hearts is enough. It takes just a moment to find peace.
Renee is a Jewish girl of about six or seven years of age (she doesn't remember exactly).
"He was a bit wild, and proud, with two black eyes as if he were only seeing them among the gypsies.
She has been living for five months now with a family that is not really her own, but by now the girl has become accustomed to us, as mothers and dads she has seen many.
Renee is in fact in perpetual escape, since he started a game with death.
"It's like a great game, but everything really happens. Renee plays with all the intelligence and vivacity that nature has given her. And so far she's winning.
Renee is always on the alert, always ready to escape from the Germans who want her dead.
She doesn't know why, but she believes that the fact of being Jewish centers, even if she "had never understood well what it was, the fact of being Jewish".
When the Germans arrive in the country where she lives, the girl does not panic too much and
Quickly prepares for the escape.
Renee is taken by the parish priest of the village, they believe that there he can be safe.
How much they are wrong.
Not even close to God, Renee is safe.
In fact, the Germans also arrive there and the parish priest can only take Renee and take her into the woods, hiding her in a ditch.
Shortly after, an American jeep passes by and the religious, in good faith, does not hesitate and entrusts the little one to the two American soldiers, telling them that he is Jewish and that they must help her to escape from the Germans.
Unfortunately, the parish priest did not know that those other soldiers were not that Germans undercover and that he has just marked the fate of the little one.
The two men are part of the Friedenthal Battalion, the cream of the Nazi army, a super-prepared group of spies serving Otto Skorzeny.
"The Nazis loved to fantasize, to create myths, they were hallucinating fanatics.
The soldiers take Renee and take her to an isolated space to kill her, but for Renee the game against death is still open.
One of the two soldiers, in fact, crosses the girl's eyes that move in him feelings stronger than hatred.
"He would not have been able to express in words what he was living.
In a split second, he shoots his partner and takes the baby with him. She takes her to an abandoned hut and stays there with her for a few days.
Mathias, he doesn't know why he did what he did, was kidnapped by Renee's eyes, by those firm eyes that were telling him he wasn't ready to die yet.
And Renee with that soldier, even if German, feels good, calmly well.
"For the first time in her life, she had forgotten to be a Jew in the company of the German soldier.
After a couple of days, however, Mathias and Renee leave the hut and find refuge in a family where, unfortunately, American soldiers also arrive.
Mathias tries to leave the little one, but in her there is something that has bewitched her, that has awakened her and made her human again.
"For one who had a deep contempt for existence, he would stick to life with truly exceptional strength.
The overwhelming story of a German kidnapped by the strength of a small Jewish.
A book that sees an unusual couple as the protagonist, one that goes beyond reason and logic. A executioner who takes care of his victim, who saves her and who has her save her.
A text written in the third person, which tells an unusual yet so moving and full of humanity.
"The stories of the deportees will invade the whole world, they have just begun, and they will be almost all similar, all steeped in immeasurable sadness, but ultimately also in a great banality.
This story, on the contrary, of banal has nothing, is exciting, deep, touching, witty, is a book that I read with a genuine pleasure, which for a long time lacked to accompany me during my readings.
It is a story that shakes you and shakes your heart, that kidnaps you with its message of compassion and altruism, that emerges right where cruelty reigned supreme.
"The whole world would take a long time to recover from that nightmare. But for the moment, we had to try to live.
A ray of goodness in the midst of hatred, a hint of love in the middle of the war, a book that I loved in its simplicity.
There are no strong scenes, there are no extremely dramatic events, this book does not want to show you the worst of World War II, but wants to tell the story of a Nazi who saved a little Jewish and how this then changed his life.
I usually keep away from readings that deal with this subject, but "Today we are alive" is something purely overwhelming, strikes you not for the impetuous reality narrated in its pages, but for the glimmer of hope that peeps out among the rubble of war.
An extraordinary book that I recommend to everyone and to which I cheque:
Plot: 5 - Narrative: 5 - Characters: 5 - Cover: 3 - Final: 5 -
5 out of 5 Wonderlands
From the book:
You could not punish anyone for telling the truth, however hard and difficult it may have been.
- "After all, this was the national socialist ideal: the end of humanity. That's a true philosophy! Of an impressive simplicity and wisdom.
Behold, it took a moment, Renee, she's already thinking about something else; she's a teacher in taking what life offers her on the fly.