Tag: #catherinehokin

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Hanni Winter Series by Catherine Hokin

Book Descriptions and Elise’s Thoughts

“The Hanni Winter series “by Catherine Hokin has four books, in order they are The Commandant’s Daughter, The Pilot’s Girl, The Girl In The Photo, and Her Last Promise. The first two books have a dual plot line.  The interesting premise involves serial killers as well as a reckoning of what happened in Nazi Germany.  The time period is in the late 1940s. The third and fourth books center on the characters’ lives, how they were affected by living through the horrors of the Nazis, and can they move forward.  The timeline is in the 1950s to 1960s.

Hanni Winter, the heroine, who is the daughter of the Concentration Camp Theresienstadt’s commandant wants to show the world his wickedness. She feels guilty because she enjoyed the benefits of the Nazi lifestyle. Freddy Schlussel is the Jewish German detective who falls for Hanni but does not realize her real background. Renny is Freddy’s sister who was reunited with him after the war and has the attitude ‘Never Again.’ Leo is the son of Hanni and Freddy who makes readers think a lot about the German morals or lack of.  Reineris Hanni’s father, someone who is pure evil, trying to bring back The Third Reich.

All these books will leave a lasting impression as readers become totally absorbed with the characters. These stories will pull at people’s heartstrings and have them take a journey with the characters as they gain courage, achieve redemption, and show the fortitude of the human spirit.  

Be aware that these books have only an English publisher, but people can get them in an e-book format or paperback through Amazon.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: The idea for the series?

Cathy Hokin: It is a four-book series. We first meet Hanni in the first book, at the age of ten in 1933 and by the end of the last book she is about 39.  The overriding arc has Hanni trying to fulfill the promise she made to herself to bring her father to justice using her photography skills. The idea for the series started because I am interested in photography.  I consider myself good, but my father was brilliant. My brother is a professional photographer.  Sometimes they don’t seem to realize about the dangers. I wanted to start off with a young photographer, Hanni, in Nazi Germany and then see her development. This last book is set during the Cold War. 

EC:  The role of photography?

CH:  Hanni feels she uses it to tell a story. She grows up in a Nazi household.  I have always been fascinated by war photographers and how they walk forward into danger.  They have a different way of framing the world.  While I am all about words, they are all about pictures. I put in this book quote, “With her heart and feelings and eyes she took pictures of the real Germany.”   I wanted the idea of Hanni using the camera to show what it is really like underneath the photograph because the Nazis used photos to manipulate things.

EC:  How would you describe Hanni?

CH:  Curious, comes from a broken family, very loyal, and guilt ridden. She feels huge guilt because she thinks she did not do enough to stop the Nazis.  Her father taunts her with this in the first book, telling her she never published her pictures or joined the resistance.

EC:  Is Hanni a complex character?

CH:  She has a massive guilt for being a part of the silence, for being complicit. Yet, when offered a scholarship to photography college by Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, she took it. She is not just black and white.  Metaphorically she shut the windows and did not shout. She did do an inner search and decided to rectify. She does have a strong sense of justice. She is incredibly naïve about what was being done at the Theresienstadt Camp by her father. She goes on this big learning curve.

EC:  How has Hanni grown from book one to book four?

CH: She acquired forgiveness.  Hanni had to come to terms that she must take responsibility for what happened in her life.  She went along with the Nazi lifestyle.  She eventually realizes she had complicity in what happened. Both she and Freddy, the hero, had to learn to be kind.  By book four she gained a lot of strength.

EC:  Why the murders in the first two books?

CH:  In the first book, The Commandant’s Daughter, Freddy meets Hanni at the site of a crime because she is photographing it. This was a way for them to meet. Hanni was a photographer and Freddy was a German detective. As with all photographers Hanni was detailed, obsessed, and can ‘home in on something’ and take a bunch of photographs from different angles. She saw things with an eye Freddy did not see. The book is set between 1945 – 1947. Book 1 and Book 2 are about serial killers.

EC:  How would you describe her father Reiner?

CH:  A dreadfully horrible individual, a complete narcissist.  Pure evil, ruthless, vengeful, and likes to bait and humiliate Hanni.  He does not have a moral compass. In book 1, 2, and 3 she tries to bring him down but fails.  He ruins her life in book 3.  It becomes Hanni versus Reiner but she does not have the skills or contacts to bring him down. He always ends up hurting everyone around her who tries to help her.

EC:  Do you want your readers to question how much could an individual have done to stop what was going on? 

CH: She should have done more. I did admire the people who did try to do something. In Germany post 1945 no one wants to speak about the war. In the 1940s and 1950s there was no dialogue about what happened.  The reason I set the last book in the 1960s is because the Eichmann trial changed everything. This spurred Hanni to do something against her father.

EC:  The moral dilemma of the characters?

CH:  In book 1, Freddy was a detective yet had to stop a serial killer from murdering Nazi officers.  I deliberately wanted the first case of Freddy to be challenged. He had to figure out if he wanted the killer to be caught or to allow the murderer to rid the world of more Nazis. He faced the dilemma of what his job demanded of him and what his conscience demanded. Hanni had to come to grips on what she did during the war and tell Freddy. She did feel guilty all the time but had to realize there is a difference between guilt and responsibility, owning up to what she did.  Even the serial killer in the first book had a moral dimension, thinking he did the correct thing by getting rid of people he thought let the army down. Tony, the serial killer in the second book, grieved in a twisted way.  All these characters think they are doing the right thing in their strange universe.

EC:  But Hanni did try to do the right thing?

CH: In the Concentration Camp Theresienstadt she did take photographs to document what was really happening and show the world. She very much wanted to stand witness, but it took her a long time to get the courage to do it.  Her father, a Nazi commandant, is pure evil, and taunted her by saying she did nothing with the photographs for a long time and never joined the resistance. There was a gap between what she wanted to do and the action to do it. She had to get that strength of character.

EC:  Leo, Hanni’s child, asked all the correct questions in the book 4?

CH: The book quote by Leo, “Because you say all those things, but I do not know if they are true. Everyone repeats the same number all the time.  Six Million Jews were murdered in the war. But then they say nobody in Germany knew what was happening. How can that be right.  It does not make sense.  Why didn’t somebody stop them?  Why didn’t he (Reiner) go to jail at the end of the war? Why aren’t the jails bursting with killers?”

EC:  How would you describe Freddy’s sister, Renny, in the books?

CH:  She is angry, lonely, and fearful.  She becomes a Zionist.  The third book is all about her. She was a confused and horrified little girl, yet she recovered. She never trusted those in Germany after the war. Israel became Navana for many. She is the opposite of Freddy who puts his head down and ignores a lot, even after the war. He wants to build a future and not be stuck on the past. She feels it means nothing has changed. She knows how bad it is and wants to fight. She ends up being able to overcome her anger and project it for good.  She was a counterpoint to Freddy.  He was culturally Jewish but not religiously Jewish.  Renny says “I don’t want to live in a pact suitcase anymore.”  It was a common feeling for those Jews still in Germany among her age group, that Germany can never be safe.  She wanted to move to Israel and did not consider herself German like Freddy did. Even today the right wing is getting stronger in Germany. 

EC:  What about the relationship between Hanni and Freddy?

CH:  She has lied to him and until book four does not come clean with Freddy. This is what ruptures them. He had a lack of trust. There are layers that prevent them from getting together, which they need to overcome. They need to work out their problems. When they first got together, they were not ready for each other.  Both had to mature and realize the relationship was worth holding on to.  Originally the series was to finish in 1953 ten years earlier than it originally does.  But that timeline did not work because they were not mature enough to forgive each other for all the mistakes. In their early twenties they had a very black and white view of the world whereas in the fourth book, in their forties they made the transition. 

EC: Next book?

CH:  It will be out in January 2024, a stand-alone.  It is set in WWII Germany in the early 1970s and 1980s in America. I had three events taking place, partly in America during the 1970s and partly in Nazi Germany.  I explore the Office of Special Investigations that was established in 1979 to investigate Nazis living in America. I also bring in Operation Paperclip that had Nazis working on the American missile program, and during Nazi Germany the Lebensborn breeding program. The story is set between 1939 and 1980.  There will be a lot of story lines. Although it will be published only in England, all my books are available as paperbacks in the States via Amazon, that includes this series and the book coming out in January.

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Secretary by Catherine Hokin

Book Description

The Tower House. Down a secluded path, hidden by overgrown vines, the crumbling villa echoes with memories. Of the family who laughed and sang there, until the Nazis tore them from their home. And of the next woman to walk its empty rooms, whose courage in the face of evil could alter the course of history…

Germany 1940. As secretary to the leader of the SS, Magda spends her days sending party invitations to high-ranking Nazis, and her evenings distributing pamphlets for the resistance. But Magda is leading a dangerous double life, smuggling secrets out of the office. It’s a deadly game, and eventual exposure is a certainty, but Magda is driven by a need to keep the man she secretly loves safe as he fights against the Nazis…

Forty years later. Nina’s heart pounds as she steps into an uncertain future carrying a forged passport, a few bank notes, and a scribbled address for The Tower House taken from an intricate drawing she found hidden in her grandmother’s wardrobe. Separated from her family and betrayed by her country, Nina’s last hope is to trace her family’s history in the ruins of the past her grandmother ran from. But, when she finally finds the abandoned house, she opens the door to a forgotten story, and to secrets which will change everything: past, present, and future…

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Secretary by Catherine Hokin is a gripping novel spanning four decades.  It has a dual timeline covering Germany during WWII and East Berlin after the war. Throughout the book readers will wonder would they be brave like the two heroines or remain a neutral bystander? Did the heroines take enough action, or should they have done more?

Magda Aderbach became the personal assistant to factory owner Walther Tiedemann, reminding readers of Oskar Schindler who saved Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. Because of her efficiency Magda impresses Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS and architect of the Holocaust, and she volunteers to be his secretary. She leads a dual life, pretending to enjoy hob-knobbing with the powerful Nazis, but also working for the resistance because she hates the Nazis and what they stand for. She smuggles reports, forges documents, arranges fake IDs to smuggle Jews out of Germany, and has organized safe houses for the Jews as well.

Fast forward forty years where Magda now lives in East Berlin, behind the Berlin Wall with her daughter, her husband, and her granddaughter, Nina Dahlke.  Both Magda and Nina have similar personality traits, wanting to fight injustice, although the granddaughter is more impulsive and a lot less cautious. Beyond that, Nina does not understand why her grandmother is so secretive about her life in Germany during WWII. She knows there is a house in question, that was once lived in by Magda, but there are secrets involved with that house, and more secrets that Magda has kept to herself. After the Wall falls, Nina takes a journey to West Berlin to find the Tower House, hoping to trace her family’s history in the ruins of the past her grandmother ran from. But, when she finally finds the abandoned house, she finds out who owned the house, and wonders if her grandmother had a dual life, seeing pictures of her with Himmler.  To make matters worse, Nina meets Elsa, the former wife of an SS officer, who lies and tries to pin her atrocities on Magda.

What the author does brilliantly is show parallels and similarities between the Nazi regime and the Communists control of East Berlin, the Stasis. As with both regimes there were spies everywhere, no freedom, a life lived under guards and rifles, terrible atrocities, and inhuman behavior where there was oppression, imprisonment, and killings. Readers understand the heroism of Magda and Nina as they were brave enough to stand up to tyranny even if it meant a harsh imprisonment or execution.  Once the wall falls, the two worlds of Nina and Magda collide in a major revelation.

This novel is riveting throughout.  Readers will not be able to put the book down, wanting to find out how the stories end for both Nina and Magda. The portrayals of these characters who must make impossible choices will keep people on the edge of their seats. A bonus is the history sprinkled throughout the novel.  

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Did you get the idea from The Lost Mother?

Catherine Hokin:  This book follows my previous novel, The Lost Mother, since it is still in Germany, this time after WWII. I also spent a lot of time in Berlin.  They have a wonderful museum dedicated to the heroes of the silent resistance. What interests me is what happened because of WWII.

EC:  What was your experience like when you went to Germany?

CH: I come from a tiny village in England. When I was seventeen, I went there and saw the wall, in about 1979.  I never have seen people with machine guns.  I spoke with a local woman who told me that her sister lived in East Berlin, and she has not seen her in over twenty years. The wall went up overnight and if someone was caught on the other side that was it. My mind fast-forwarded to this story. There are a lot of flash points for me which I write about in my books. 

EC:  Did the book have similarities between Communists and the Nazis?

CH:  They both were oppressive, used surveillance, and censorship, controlling people’s lives and minds. I did the comparison intentionally.  I find it fascinating how in a short period of time society moved from one dictatorship to another. When East Germany was born there was hope behind it, but it turned into something people had fought to get rid of, such as the genocide.

EC:  How did you do the research?

CH: I read a huge number of books, spent a lot of time in London’s Holocaust Library, and saw on the Internet people who told their stories.  With every book I spent six months of research to understand the nuance. 

EC:  How would you describe Magda?

CH:  She is reliable, steady, impulsive, loyal, brave, and chose to fight injustice. But I do not think she realizes the scale of what was the cost of her involvement. She has a naïve view that she can stand up to the Nazis who she worked with. Magda questions if she did enough?  She did arrange escape routes and wrote reports, forging IDs, and had safe houses.

EC:  Magda’s saving of Jews-was it based on reality?

CH:  Yes. About 6000 Jews survived in hiding in Berlin. People found them a cellar to hide in and had them move around.  I even put in a scene where Magda tried to go back out to help more. I wanted to show how the Nazis treated the Jews.

EC:  How would you describe Nina?

CH:  I felt a kinship with her.  I was a lot like her.  She felt she did not fit in her world.  She fought back although clumsily, putting others at risk.  Nina is a feisty character.  To write the scenes where she was imprisoned, I spent a lot of time at the Hohenschonhausen Prison in East Berlin, a horrible place. She is spunky, innocent, conflicted, and hot-headed.  She did not have choices and control over her life. After the Wall came down, she felt alienated. 

EC:  What was the role of Elsa in the story?

CH:  She is horrible, hard, vicious, dangerous, and cruel, an adversary of Magda.   I wrote her to show how someone during those times was immersed in the Nazi life.  She loved the lifestyle. Elsa was caught up in the cause and jealous of Magda. Elsa liked being in control of the chess board, pulling people’s strings.

EC:  Next books?

CH:  This is the third book published by Grand Central in the US. I have written seven books, the seventh one coming out this month in the UK.  People can get any of my books in E format in the states. I also write a series where the third book comes out in the UK in January. The series is about a photographer and a Jewish detective, taking place from 1933 to 1963, set in Berlin and Prague.  The first two books involve serial killers, taking revenge on what happened to them. The fourth book in the series comes out in May. Each book has crimes that came of WWII.

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.