What were the women of Germany doing during the Third Reich? What were they thinking? And what do they have
to say a half century later? In Frauen we hear their voices - most for the first time. Alison Owings interviewed
and here records the words of twenty-nine German women who were there: Working for the Resistance. Joining the
Nazi Party. Outsmarting the Gestapo. Disliking a Jewish neighbor. Hiding a Jewish friend. Witnessing "Kristallnacht."
Witnessing the firebombing of Dresden. Shooting at Allied planes. Welcoming Allied troops. Being a prisoner. And
being a guard. The women recall their own and others' enthusiasm, doubt, fear, fury, cowardice, guilt, and anguish.
Alison Owings, in her pursuit of such memories, was invited into the homes of these women. Because she is neither
Jewish nor German, and because she speaks fluent colloquial German, many of the women she interviewed felt comfortable
enough with her to unlock the past. What they have to say will surprise Americans, just as it surprised the women
themselves. Not since Marcel Ophuls's controversial film The Sorrow and the Pity have we been on such intimate
terms with "the enemy." In this case, the story is that of the women, those who did not make policy but
who lived with its effects and witnessed its results. What they did and did not do is not just a reflection on
them and their country - it also leads us to question what actions we might have taken in their place. The interviews
do not allow for easy, smug answers.