What do readers think of Jacob's Oath by Martin Fletcher? Write your own review.

Having read more than one book about the Holocaust, there are always similarities. What sets this book apart is the love story amid the ruins and destruction and more importantly the effort it took the main characters to maintain and/or regain their humanity amid all the inhumanity. I thought the characters were well developed and mostly--but not completely believable. Overall it was a good read.

This book would probably generate an interesting discussion in a book club, and I would recommend it for a book club selection.

Not often does one find a book that focuses on the plight of the refugees at the end of WW II, and almost never a very real insight into the overwhelming challenges the Holocaust survivors faced. This book quickly drew me in, and gave me a capsule view of two such survivors. Jacob and Sarah meet in a very unlikely way in Heidelberg at the end of the war. Both have survived unimaginable horror and trauma. Jacob, with a deep, revengeful anger toward his brother's SS murderer, and Sarah with unfathomable pain from the horror and loss she endured. Together they have to try and work through this past into beginning to build a future and this is the focus of the story. It was informative, emotional, suspenseful, and I find myself thinking about it over and over. Great book group book!

Why return to a place when there is nothing left? Why not return? "When can a good person do a bad thing?" These are the primary questions dealt with in this very well-written novel about the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. The story follows two young Jews who have had very different war experiences but are both broken in their own ways. The reader learns who they were and who they have become and watches them struggle with making a new life while still dealing with what happened to the old one. This book will make you think. It made me want to read more by this author.

I wanted to give this book a 5 since it is more than just good. The few reservations I have come from the slow moving story. I did fall asleep several times while reading.
That being said, the plot was so true to the quandary generated by the difficult decisions of love and life. I could relate to Jacob's indecision. I would like to know Sarah better.
I think that the story is missing some emotional interaction since the author is a news correspondent and not a novelist. He includes great nuggets of interest about Germany's WWII trials. I will recommend this book to my book club for that reason.

This is the story of two survivors -- both Jews, one of whom survived Bergen-Belsen and one of whom survived living in bombed-out houses and other inhospitable spaces during the war. The title's "oath" refers to the promise Jacob made to his little brother, Maxie, to kill the camp guard who killed the boy; but it also refers to the vow Sarah made to make a life for herself, despite having lost everyone she loved.

Jacob and Sarah meet in Heidelberg after his concentration camp is liberated; Jacob finds that he has a talent for making money in all sorts of semi-questionable ways, and Sarah is still trying to recover from a rape that was perpetrated by a Russian soldier. "Jacob's Oath" is the story of their growing love for each other, and the choices they make as they decide whether to live in the past or create lives for themselves for the future.

This is a novel about one of the most horrific periods in our history; the holocaust and its aftermath. Author Martin Fletcher does a masterful job of capturing the essence of the heart rendering atrocities committed, and the despair created in the death camps. Jacob was interred in a concentration camp and was subjected to the cruelty and inhumane treatment of the Jews but was able to survive. His brother was less fortunate, dying in Jacob's arms.

The major portion of the novel deals with the time after the end of the war. Jacob meets Sarah, a survivor who was able to hide out and escape capture. She is also a victim, but at the hands of the liberators. Jacob is obsessed with fulfilling a promise made to his brother that he would avenge his death. This obsession threatens their relationship and their future.

Author Fletcher has created a story that held my interest throughout. It is a love story that has all the suspense, anxiety and pity that ones emotions can endure.

The premise for this book - why would a Jew who survived World War II chose to live in Germany - is an entry into the chaos of post-war life. It is also the framework for a poignant love story. The horror of survival in Germany of two Jewish young adults is not whitewashed. At times the deprivation and violence is hard to read, but the author counter balances these passages with wonderful descriptive phrases of an emerging spring and the resurrection of trust and love in Jacob and Sarah. Simple pleasures, like a bag of cherries and hot water, are embraced and savored. But the secrets and suffering of unfulfilled promises are potential obstacles to the future of their life and love together.

I thoroughly enjoyed this well written and satisfying novel of romance, love and restoration seen through the eyes of Jacob and Sarah who scarred by the Holocaust.

Why would a refugee who is dirty, hungry, homeless, destitute, and shoeless want to return to his birthplace? After the camps, how do you rebuild toward a hopeful future without the painful and brutal memories of the assault and horror of your losses? This book is about the courageous survivors of the camps and their daily emotional roller coaster of memories that influence hope and planning for a future in Heidelberg, Germany. The conflicts escalate to a climax in a very engaging way. The characters, Sara and Jacob the villain, Hans, and others were very believable and hard to forget. The German Holocaust was horrific and those who returned to Germany had both logical and emotional reasons for making the trek. This novel is about their journey during the war, their decision to return to home, and the aftereffects of the horrors. The descriptions were so vivid a reader could feel the cold, the pain of the fall, and the sickness from fever and bacteria. The bullying of Maxi, Jacob's brother and his subsequent death by "THE RAT" became reoccurring nightmares for Jacob as he dealt with his demons. The losses that this couple experienced were significant and became hard for the reader to assimilate without a great deal of empathy and sympathy. I felt I knew the moral fabric and soul of this couple. Lieutenant Isak Brodsky became a savior and the hopeful eye toward life and future happiness. His fortuitous help and empathy at critical times in the novel's plot became necessary to the reader's need to know that things would only get better for this couple that we come to know so well. This new novel is a different take on the story of the holocaust because this was about the demons that accompany the psychological state as the protagonists attempt to rebuild a future without predictability while paying homage to a past that is horribly traumatic.