A poignant story of a German family's struggles during the Nazi reign
Back Cover:
It is 1932, Silesia, Germany, and the eve of Antonia's 12th birthday. Hitler's Brownshirts and Red Front Marxists are fighting each other in the streets. Antonia doesn't care about the political unrest but it's all her family argue about. Then Hitler is made Chancellor and order is restored across the country, but not in Antonia's family. The longer the National Socialists stay in power, the more divided the family becomes with devastating consequences. Unpleasant truths are revealed and terrible lies uncovered. Antonia thinks life can't get much worse - and then it does. Partly based on a true-life story, Antonia's gripping diary takes the reader inside the head of an ordinary teenage girl growing up. Her journey into adulthood, however, is anything but ordinary.
It was with great pleasure that I read this World War II Nazi Germany story told through the eyes of a young German girl. The Blue Suitcase opens in 1932 Silesia, Germany. Antonia Nasiski is twelve years old. The political upheaval in her country slowly infiltrates her family, tearing them apart bit by bit as they each face horrific struggles.
It is a poignant coming-of-age story that tugs at the reader’s heartstrings. The easy, simplistic style transcends age restrictions and is appropriate for young adults as well as adults. What makes this novel so important is that it gives readers a point of view rarely shared – that of the suffering of the common German people.
The novel is a compelling read, unique, and one that will definitely shock. It is a portrayal of the resilience of the human spirit. An excellent depiction of a lesser know point of view.
This is a novel by an American told from a German actor’s point of view during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. The actor’s military mission is to pose as an American so he can sabotage the Allied effort. Secretly he is trying to find a way out of a brutal war that Germany cannot win. That is a tiny hint of the ironic “Through the Looking Glass” tone that the author maintains throughout the book.
I know a little more than the average person about the Battle of the Bulge. My father was a front line infantryman battling the Germans, the snow, and the cold in Belgium in December of 1944. I knew of the Massacre at Malmedy, and I knew the G.I. response to it. A soldier caught in an SS uniform from that point on died immediately. It never occurred to me what the German soldier’s response to the massacre might be. I see now that they would be equally horrified first because turnabout could be expected, and secondly, the growing realization on both sides that the stupidity of their own officers is what got them killed.
Max, the main character of the novel, is an apolitical failed actor turned reluctant soldier. He has lived in America and has mixed feelings about the broad, muscular, cultureless country. He returns to Germany when he cannot support himself as an actor in New York. While there, he has seen America’s might and its endless resources, and knows that Germany will lose the war. He merely wants to survive. When the chance comes to escape the brutality of the Russian Front for a special mission in the west, he grabs it hoping at some point he will be able to surrender to the Americans or perhaps disappear behind the American lines until the war is over.
The only problem is he is the tip of the spear for Germany’s greatest attack against the west during WWII. They put him in an SS uniform, give him an American uniform on top and send him out ahead of the Panzers to create confusion in the American ranks, and to take a key bridge that the tanks must cross if the attack is to be a success.
Max does not anticipate several problems. American slang is subtle and beyond his skills as an English speaker, his companions are less than helpful, the weather is awful, and the attack is doomed to failure from the start. He manages to handle those problems, but what he does not anticipate is the moral conundrum he finds himself in. Is he a German or an American? What is he willing to do to survive? Once he decides who he is, his path is clear.
There are a bunch of good reasons to read this book. It presents the war as seen from the eyes of a German corporal. It is a nasty, brutal affair that they have been tricked into by Nazis. He is terrified of the Russians, but has a hard time thinking of the Americans as the enemy despite the bullets and the artillery. The book does a marvelous job of showing the ‘fog of war’ wherein no one truly understands what is going on once the attack has begun. Finally, the book is fun. Shakespeare may have said that all the world’s a play, but Max lives it. The difference is that Max’s audience is hostile, and a bad review means death.
Heidegger’s Glasses is a complex, intricate story that weaves history with the esoteric. By using philosopher Martin Heidegger’s eyeglasses as a catalyst, Thaisa Frank questions the definition of reality within the historical framework of World War II Germany.
Cocooned from the blatant horrors of World War II, Scribes and their SS guards are equally imprisoned in an underground compound, built within a mineshaft. The job of the captive Scribes is to answer letters to the dead in order to appease their otherworldly spirits, who would otherwise tell the world about the Nazi plan for the Final Solution. Based on the historical existence of the Thule Society and the Nazi officers who subscribed to occultist beliefs, Frank extends their ideas to create the fictional Compound of Scribes.
Elie Schacten is one of the Scribes, a group of bilingual translators forced to write letters to the dead. Elie and her lover, SS guard Gerhardt Lodenstein, are members of the Resistance, and use the Compound of Scribes as a hiding place for refugees. Elie’s true identity remains shrouded in layers of mystery, much to Lodenstein’s dismay.
When the feared Nazi propaganda leader Goebbels orders the Scribes to write a letter and deliver eyeglasses to philosopher Martin Heidegger from his optometrist friend Asher Englehardt, held at Auschwitz, the clandestine world of the Scribes is turned upside down. Neither Englehardt nor Heidegger is dead and the Scribes openly question the bizarre nature of their entire mission. Suddenly, their personal dramas meet the harsh face of Auschwitz as Lodenstein ventures beyond the compound to follow the Reich’s orders. Elie and Lodenstein must protect the Scribes, and the Resistance, from Goebbels’s unpredictable wrath.
Thaisa Frank writes with clear-cut prose, deftly juxtaposes the horror of war and the tenderness of love. Heidegger’s Glasses asks, in the face of war and death, what is real?
This is a mesmerizing debut novel about a young boy named Moses. The waif is born to a deaf mute woman and they live in utter poverty, completely dependent upon scraps to survive. His mother’s only role in life is to toll the massive church bells in the church tower that provides them with a place to live.
From his earliest memories, Moses is attuned to the sound, able to discern even the minutest of changes or nuances, and he is entranced by the melodius sounds. Everyone believes he is like his mother, deaf and mute. But when his true father, the priest of that church accidentally discovers Moses can hear and talk, his father attempts to deafen him out of fear the secret of his paternity will be discovered. When that failed, he threw Moses into the raging river. Moses is rescued by two wandering monks and ultimately is brought to a monastery to live. There, he encounters Ulrich who attempts to preserve Moses’ beautiful voice by castrating him.
As a castrato, Moses encounters adversity wherever he goes – from the taunting of boys in the monastery, to the ballrooms of Vienna. When Moses falls in love with the beautiful Amalia, and she with him, their lives are embroiled in turmoil as others seek to tear them apart.
The Bells is a beautiful, tragic love story. The prose is redolent with music, as if the prose creates sounds and tones for the ear. Each page seems to evoke emotion as Moses faces one adversity after another, making the book literally unputdownable. I cannot say enough about the wonders and beauty of this novel and the emotions that grab you with every word. With all sincerity, this is one book you must read, not only for its uniqueness, but because it’s so very, very good!
The focus of Paula Phelan’s story, 1939 - Into the Dark, published by ZAP Media New York, takes place over a twelve month period with her characters interacting with famous names of the day in both New York Society's arts and entertainment world.
Set during the months before the declaration of war in Europe, Jason Rothman, is writing a play starring Carole Lombard which promises to be a huge success, but he is distracted by the events in Europe.
Having no knowledge of how the US greeted the news and events of the opening months of the war, being weaned on The Blitz, rationing and telegrams received by my family from the War Office, this perspective was what attracted me about this novel.
Consumed with their own problems after the great depression and the threats to playwrights and actors, although most of the characters seem aware of the gathering storm, they are reluctant to do more than discuss its implications dispassionately. Some are even glad to have escaped it, but no one wants to do anything positive.
Miriam, Jason’s wife, is an aspiring poet whose parents are trapped in Germany. The letters they send to Jason and Miriam are distressing, and Jason cannot understand why New York is so ambivalent about what is happening in Europe. Faced with success after many years of hard work, Jason is torn between a desire to do something to help the Jews, and concentrating on his career.
The novel takes the form of short, cameo scenes, each starring a different set of characters; a playwright, an artist, a musician, an architect, an activist and a gangster, the events of their lives, interspersed with press reports of dire warnings about the coming war, mixed in with film reviews. This unusual, fast-paced format was somewhat confusing at first, and I couldn’t get a handle on who the main characters of the book actually were. I also found myself waiting for the rest of the cast to fall in line with the premise that something had to be done about the war in Europe and the atrocities being perpetrated on the Jewish community.
This novel isn’t as simple at that, however and the realisation of how world changing this war would be takes longer to dawn on those watching it from afar, as well as others who turn off the radio due to the burgeoning difficulties of their own lives.
My initial impatience with their lethargy is soon dispelled as Ms Phelan shows me that perhaps they can be excused for their self absorption. Her characters all have intense, interesting lives, and their denial becomes understandable when their own conflicts are taken into account. No one has a free ride in this book, and in their place, I wondered if I would have instantly clamoured to be involved in a conflict everyone hopes will burn out before it becomes too serious.
With the WPA Federal Theatre Project, the Un-American Activities Committee, the Spanish Civil War, and demonstrations by communist unions thrown into the mix, this goes some way to exonerate those who resist involving themselves in a foreign war. Ms Phelan manages to weave them all together in the later stages, where she also makes a comment on the film Wuthering Heights which made me smile.
The characters who stood out for me, apart from Jason and Miriam and their prickly marriage, was Sarah the harpist whose independence and compassion brings some emotion to the series of loosely connected events. Ms Phelan’s meticulous research adds depth and colour to her story, as well as references to Mayor La Guardia, the hedonistic Gables, Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine Hepburn and many others.
1939-Into The Dark is the second of a trilogy, which deals with iconic events in American history in an unusual way. The first novel is 1919 Misfortune’s End, and the next book to be released is 1969 The Dream of Aquarius.
Sylvia by Bryce Courtenay is a multifaceted tale abounding with captivating characters set in the 13th century Germany and Italy during the Children’s Crusade. Sylvia Honeyeater was born with the voice of an angel, the birthmark of a fish on her back between her shoulder blades, and the ability to mimic bird calls and summon them to her. While being sexually abused by her own father, she inadvertently kills him and finds herself alone and orphaned.
By a wild stroke of fate, the town gossip discovers Sylvia’s birthmark and makes an outrageous claim that a miracle has occurred. The town priest is skeptical. Sylvia’s reputation st The priest, however, is not convinced and she soon finds herself banished from the town, her birthplace and home for all of her eleven years.
Sylvia meets Reinhardt, a flute player with the ability to charm and catch rats with his instrument. Together, they journey to Cologne to scrape out a living as musicians. In Cologne, Sylvia lands in a brothel and later a convent, the better of which is the whorehouse.
The story is told in first person narrative through the voice of Sylvia herself. The first chapter is perhaps one of the best, most dynamic first chapters I have ever come across in any book I’ve read. The story unfolds thereafter as an adventure where Sylvia faces numerous obstacles in her journey towards womanhood and maturity.
The book is a bit on the long side and although there were some “slower” parts, it kept me engaged long enough to read to the very end. Bryce Courtenay is a talented writer whose rich prose brings to life vivid characters and settings. The level of research, evident because of all the rich details strewn throughout its pages, is commendable. Overall, an enjoyable read!
