Jodi Picoult - The Storyteller

So much has been written about the holocaust and a faithful rendering of the events from the perspective of the sufferers (and their descendants) or the perpetrators (and their descendants) will always be subject to controversy. Many people ask why folks cannot just move on.  There are those who say - as the student in the book - that the 'Holocaust did not happen and is just a figment of people's imagination'. There are those who have justified slavery by saying that it happened because Africans themselves perpetuated the trade. I was amazed in reading "The Storyteller" that certain Jews as the chairman were as much to blame as the German perpetrators. In my view, the involvement of Jews as cogs in the system do not make the events of the holocaust any less shocking.

 

I picked this book from Centurion Mall in Pretoria as I searched for something to help me kill the boredom.  Having read Jodi before, I was certain that she would not disappoint even in such a difficult subject. Having completed the book, I am non the wiser about the reasons that led the Germans to 'invent' the holocaust and its concentration camps.  I have never been able to explain other crimes against humanity such as slavery, genocide, apartheid, segregation or post election violence.  The politics behind those events are too great for my mind to grasp.  I have highlighted very many passages in this book...In practically every chapter there was something that spoke loudly and clearly to me. My first highlighted phrase was "...Be a good listener. Do not judge, and don't put boundaries on someone else's grief." This is the "motto" in the grief therapy group in which everybody has lost something different.

 

Midway through the book, I checked twitter and the story of Roman Blumm who survived the holocaust popped up. It is said that he died intestate at the age of 97 with a fortune of over $40 million. Someone wondered why if he did not have an heir, he did not donate his wealth to a Jewish temple. I would have wanted to talk to Roman Blumm to understand his relationship with the creator. It is said that most folks who have survived the difficult situations have a complicated relationship with God. In the crises of our lives, there are those who are drawn towards the creator and there are those who stagger backwards never quite understanding why it happened to them. The misfortune could be anything...a genocide, death, sickness or any other misfortune...but the question is often "why me?".

 

I read an article in the FT Weekend for May4/5 2013 about Horst von Hachter who attempts to sanitise the role played by his father Otto von Wachter (a war criminal implicated in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews). What hit me was a bolded passage that said "I know that the system was criminal and that my father was part of it but I do not think he was criminal". It is in thinking about this that I tried to assemble Sage's feelings towards Franz Hartmann in the novel.  Was Franz Hartmann simply a cog in a killing machine that he had no option against or was he just as culpable as his brother Reiner Hartmann?
 

What makes Jodi's book interesting is that it ultimately is more a book about family.  Intertwined in the book are stories of families from both sides of the divide and how they fared during this difficult period. There are also stories of families in this day and age with the sibling rivalry, betrayal, love, concern, loss and all that goes with being a family.

 

Most of the book is set in the current period when Sage, a grandchild of holocaust survivors, meets and befriends 'Josef Weber' at a grief group.  Josef Weber, among other things feels that his punishment is that 'he must live forever' and is looking for a way to end his existence. Sage's grandmother who survived the holocaust does not want to talk about it because she feels her descendants must not be bogged down with issues of a time past.   'Josef' is not his real name because many folks changed their names as part of the sanitisation process. (What I have never really understood is why others continued to work for the post war German governments and were never punished. What high level deals made this possible?).

 

So we now have Kenya's post election violence. Did it really happen or is it too, a figment of someone's imagination? A colleague asked me...around the time I was reading this novel, what it felt for Kenyans to have elected someone who has been indicted for crimes against humanity as our country's president. My answer - having read the book - is that there are so many crimes perpetuated against mankind in one form or other that are not dealt with.

However, I am encouraged Franz Weiner a.k.a Josef Weber's analysis of  his situation.  If there is an all knowing God then everyone faces their own demons and their own punishments...In this life. Very interestingly, today (6th May) there was an article on BBC News about A 93-year-old alleged former guard at the Auschwitz extermination camp has been arrested in southern Germany. In his defence, Mr Lipschis acknowledges he served with the Waffen SS at the camp in occupied Poland, but claims he was only a cook. He is accused of participating in the mass murder and persecution of innocent civilians, primarily Jews, at Auschwitz between October 1941 and 1945.  The comments from readers were "interesting" with some wondering whether this was justice too late. (I will be impossible for me to see a 90+ year old German and not wonder what their role was during this period.)