They say that this book is one of the most remarkable, visceral pieces of literature to emerge from the onset of the Holocaust. What sets it apart from many other works on the era is its staggering immediacy: Boschwitz wrote the novel in a frantic four-week fever dream immediately following the Kristallnacht pogroms of November 1938. Because it wasn't written decades later with the benefit of historical hindsight, it captures the psychological terror, confusion, and eerie social claustrophobia of that exact moment with the terrifying accuracy of a live broadcast. And perhaps this is the dimension that made it a page-turner for me, but at the same time, I find it rather hard to sympathise with the main character. After all, Otto Silbermann seems to only care about his money, all the way to the very end.
The plot is essentially a diary of a journey to nowhere. The novel follows Otto Silbermann, a wealthy, deeply assimilated German-Jewish businessman and World War I veteran living in Berlin. Silbermann has "Aryan" features, a Protestant wife, and has always felt far more German than Jewish. The story starts with Nazi stormtroopers literally pounding on his front door. Silbermann escapes out the back, carrying a briefcase stuffed with what remains of his cash. From that moment on, his existence dissolves. He is rejected by lifelong friends, blackmailed by business associates, and finds himself entirely unmoored. To avoid arrest, he boards a train. Then another. And another. He spends days crisscrossing Germany on the rail network, turning the trains into a microcosm of a collapsing world. His relative wealth and "passing" looks buy him temporary anonymity, but he is trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare: he is running out of options, other countries are closing their borders to Jewish refugees, and his flight becomes a loop with no exit. And in the end, he loses his marbles and goes crazy, holed up in a German prison.
I suppose I liked how Boschwitz brilliantly dissects the mental acrobatics of Jews who believed their status as proud Germans would protect them. Silbermann initially views the Nazi headlines as a bad joke, struggling to accept that a civilized society could turn into "enemy territory" overnight. The novel also shines a harsh light on ordinary German citizens. On the trains, Silbermann sits among everyday people who happily echo Nazi propaganda, look the other way, or actively scheme to profit off the desperation of their Jewish neighbors. And perhaps this was reflecting the sentiment of the time period, but the book's atmosphere is portraying a blend of a high-stakes Alfred Hitchcock thriller and Franz Kafka. The endless repetition of train arrivals and departures shifts from a tactic for survival into a slow descent into madness.
Now, did I like this book? Well, sort of. I liked it as a historical account of Kristallnacht and the immediately succeeding time period. I am glad I did not live in Berlin in 1938. Perhaps what I didn't like was the main character himself. I mean, when would it click that things won't go back to normal again? When would he start focusing on survival instead of his (essentially non-existent) business? Even up to the very end, he was expressing sentiment where he says that he considers it a criminal offense not to take care of business matters. I suppose money is more important than one's life, eh? Fine, I have 20/20 vision in hindsight, but I still have to say that it is hard to sympathise with someone if that someone is purely focused on the 30,000 marks stashed inside the briefcase that he's been lugging around the country.
In any case, I still liked the fact that I was able to read this book. I'll consider it from a historical perspective. And given that, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
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