The moment the story began with a Jewish girl assuming the identity of the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi official, I knew it would be a bold story told from a different perspective. Although the author herself is of German descent, she doesn't try to whitewash or justify the crimes committed by the Nazis, but she also doesn't go overboard with a blanket condemnation either – that would be too easy a path, and, well, we've already seen this stereotype in so many books before.
In my opinion, that’s exactly what makes this story so great: you can hardly call it clichéd. It’s different, unconventional, and in many ways controversial. It emphasizes the human element, which I always love in a book about this era, and it highlights the doubt of one's own beliefs about what the person they're looking at really is - not what they've been told or taught to believe, but what that person's actions show, whether that's the Jewish woman or the young German officer. The Gestapo chief was also a very interesting character described from the point of view of his own social environment. Of course, there were also the monolithic fanatics, because obviously they existed, and you can find them in every society in every historical period. The roles of men and women in a typical Nazi family were also described very vividly giving one an even better insight into the racist mentality associated with this regime, which was something I also enjoyed.
“A Light in the Window” by Marion Kummerow was indeed a wonderful read, and when I say that you won’t be able to put the book down, you can be sure it’s not just a figure of speech.