Lew's AUTHOR BLOG

I.J. Singer (the older brother of Isaac Bashevitz Singer) tells the story of three generations of a Jewish family, from Poland to Berlin to New York, from the early 1900s to the 1930s.

German Jews thought they were safe, with careers and sufficient wealth to live comfortably, to work, marry, have children and pray. They assimilated and they had become, as Singer puts it, “Jews in the house and Germans on the street.”

Then came the Nazis and everything was turned upside down.

The scenes describing the impact of the brutal, ignorant Nazi beasts are frightening and difficult to read, but impossible to put aside. In their minds in the German Jews of Singer’s novel were as good as any other German, but in public, in the “streets,” they were not Germans at all, but simply despicable Jews, to be robbed and beaten at will. They had done everything they thought was right and they had succeeded in building satisfying and productive lives, and now they were nothing, barely able to stay alive, with nowhere to turn for help.

I read this as a library copy, but immediately my purchased own, to read again as I write my still untitled story of how Hitler came to power, who supported his rise and why, who stood aside, and my young fictional characters who tried to resist.

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