"Powerful testimony from 29 German women survivors of the Third Reich that provides not only a stunning portrait of life on the home front but also insights into a society that spawned both Hitler and the Holocaust. . . . Oral history at its best . . . a much-needed record of WWII German women."
~Kirkus Reviews
"In vivid and often poignant portraits-cum-interviews . . . [Owings] has captured the extraordinary diversity of their experiences . . . each portrait, each interview, provides valuable insight into what happened to half the German population between 1933 and 1945."
* A New York Times Notable Book of the Year *
~New York Times Book Review
"These oral histories displace the silences and stereotypes that have prevented us from recognizing the myriad ways German women and their families responded to Nazism. . . . They probe the complexities and contradictions that German women faced during the Nazi era, reminding us that human action is never automatic or overdetermined. . . . Reading Frauen we begin to glimpse how the exercise of conscience is simultaneously possible and subverted under fascism."
~Women's Review of Books
"A vivid picture of Germany under the Nazis emerges from this collection of unsettling interviews."
~Publishers Weekly
"A remarkable work of history that stands out from the vast library of World War II studies for its sheer intimacy and its sometimes startling perspectives. . . . Frauen transcends the genre of oral history and turns into something more elaborate and accomplished and memorable."
~Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[An] engaging book . . . this is oral history as it should be done."
~Chicago Tribune
"Frauen goes further than any book I know toward addressing the eternal question of the private citizen's individual responsibility within a fascist regime. Few of Ms. Owings's Frauen can be called heroines, or even passive resisters. But that is her point. This book will be mined by contemporary and future scholars, indeed, by all who puzzle over the moral failures of 'human nature'."
~Susan Brownmiller
"An extraordinarily rich historical resource, both exhilarating and exasperating, moving, and occasionally, hilarious. Owings asks tough questions, has a fine eye for telling gestures, and chooses her subjects from all walks of life. . . . An excellent work."
~Choice
"This collection . . . will fascinate anyone who has wondered how ordinary women experienced life in Nazi Germany. . . . A valuable work of reportage."
~Booklist
"The effect is akin to eavesdropping on an intimate conversation and helps put events and people's reactions to them in context . . . Owings resists stereotyping her subjects."
~San Francisco Chronicle
