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jazzy_daveJiri Weil "Mendelssohn is on the Roof" (Daunt Books)
I took this book on my Ramsgate visit as I had a few pages left to read.
While Primo Levi, Ann Frank, and Eli Weizel are well known contributors to Holocaust literature, Jiri Weil is not. It is a shame that Weil is not better known because his work is just as powerful. This novel, set in German occupied Prague, "The Protectorate" as it is known, faithfully and horrifically describes life outside of the concentration camp. The closest it gets is the Terezin ghetto. Life was equally bleak outside the extermination camps. The novel views the world through the eyes of various characters, some Jews but others Nazis or Czech workers. This pastiche dwells on the usual themes of evil, power, death, violence, and suffering. A less typical theme was the psychic pain experienced by those who chose to or were forced to be complicit with the Nazis. And, although almost everyone meets a poor ending, in the end life always affirms itself. This truly is a brilliant novel and classic literature at its best.
I took this book on my Ramsgate visit as I had a few pages left to read.
While Primo Levi, Ann Frank, and Eli Weizel are well known contributors to Holocaust literature, Jiri Weil is not. It is a shame that Weil is not better known because his work is just as powerful. This novel, set in German occupied Prague, "The Protectorate" as it is known, faithfully and horrifically describes life outside of the concentration camp. The closest it gets is the Terezin ghetto. Life was equally bleak outside the extermination camps. The novel views the world through the eyes of various characters, some Jews but others Nazis or Czech workers. This pastiche dwells on the usual themes of evil, power, death, violence, and suffering. A less typical theme was the psychic pain experienced by those who chose to or were forced to be complicit with the Nazis. And, although almost everyone meets a poor ending, in the end life always affirms itself. This truly is a brilliant novel and classic literature at its best.
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