The church was empty, as were the cleric's living quarters. During the war she was an SS guard at Auschwitz and along with three other women guarded Jewish prisoners on a 'death march' through a village that was long deserted. The next time Michael sees Hanna, he is a law student and she is on trial for Nazi war crimes. Michael feels guilty for not having gone over to speak to her and so he goes to her apartment but finds that she has upped and left without saying a word. She doesn't wave and when he looks again she has gone. One afternoon he looks up and sees Hanna on the other side of the pool. He enjoys her company and enjoys being with his friends at the local swimming pool where the kids congregate. In the Fall, Michael goes back to school, where he makes more friends and is moderately attracted to a classmate called Sophie. They both greatly enjoy the trip and it seems to increase their addiction to each other even more. He maps out their route, prepares their bicycles and makes all the plans. Hungry to spend more time together, Michael tells his parents he is taking a short trip with a friend during the summer vacation, but he is actually going on a trip with Hanna. She also loves Michael to read aloud to her which he does every day. She shares with him only the bare facts of her life her name is Hanna, she is a conductor on the street car and she lives alone. From that day Michael goes to her every day. Seeing each other naked they are drawn inexplicably to each other. When Michael returns, he helps her by bringing coal up to the apartment but is so covered in dirt from it that she runs him a bath. The woman is busy with errands but Michael finds himself strangely attracted to her and runs out of the apartment like a child. He has hepatitis and is sick for some time, but when he is feeling better his mother dispatches him to the woman's apartment so that he can thank her properly. Going home from school one afternoon, he began to feel nauseous and vomited violently all over himself a woman sees him and brings him into her apartment to clean him up before he goes home. Michael begins the novel by telling the reader that as a fifteen-year-old boy he became involved with a woman in her mid-thirties, and that he has remained infatuated with her memory ever since. Michael Berg is a German who has grown up very aware of what was perpetrated by the Nazis during the Third Reich, and like many young men his age feels anger and shame which he directs mostly at his parents' and grandparents' generation for sitting by and enabling it to happen. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The reader bernhard