Yeah yeah yeah, no blog in months - I KNOW! (I really should blog more often, my poor friend Amber I am sure is sick to death of hearing my daily diatribe, of not only world but my life injustices. But there are times when I really don't think what I have to say is blog worthy, just a bunch of random musings that shouldn't be set free into the interwebs)
This year I have challenged myself to read 100 books, I didn't enter into this until the middle of January, so averaging 2 books a week I am already a little behind! I figure several well over due holidays this year shall rectify that situation.
So far I have read some great books, and of course some not so wonderful titles... currently I am reading Jodi Picoult's new offering "The Storyteller" which leads me to my blog..
The *blurbs* on the book covers really don't do what they should - I went into reading "The Slap" thinking it was something completely different to what it turned out to be.. completely misguided by the publishing world and frankly several hours of my life I would like back. Likewise with Picoult's "The Storyteller" - I thought I was going to embark on a novel about a baker (something I am obviously interested in) with the twist of a (modern day) moral dilemma/law and order plot, I should have known better. Here I am half way through, propelled into 1940's Nazi Germany.
Now I have read several books about war time Germany from many angles, fact and works of fiction, throughout my life, and several while being stationed her IN Germany (The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, The Candy Bombers, The Book Thief to name but a few)- it has however taken up until now and THIS novel, to make me feel slightly uncomfortable, and open up a vein of disgust with mankind that I didn't even know existed within me. Call me naive if you will, and it certainly isn't a case of "ignorance is bliss" because I've know for a long time The Holocaust happened. I *know* to what extent good people suffered, not only Jews but those not of pure race or Aryan descent, but I have never been moved before like I was today.
There is a certain passage in the book where a former SS officer an "Untersturmfuhrer' (company commander) describes how during an "Aktion" in Poland, where it took 2 days of constant shooting to kill over 2000 Jews, he came across a mother and young child in the last group - this is at a point where the led people to a trench full of bodies, not bothering any longer to cover each layer with earth, but instead making people lie face down on those already dead or dying - the passage tells the story of how the mother carried the little girl and told her not to look, to keep her eyes closed. How she placed the girl amongst the fallen bodies as if tucking her in for the night, and then how she began to sing, a well known lullaby, not in the words of the SS man, but with the same melody. It struck me during this passage, as I read through tears, just how many people suffered, not just grown men, but women and children. People who gave in to their fate, watching hundreds being slaughtered while waiting in line to die, extremely brave people, people out of options. I know that pre Sophia I would be touched by this "story" but now as a mother myself, it opens up a whole new avenue of thought.
There is also the part of me that can't comprehend how I live here 70 years on amongst descendants of a nation who stood by and let the atrocity happen. When we arrive in Germany we are told not to discuss the war with local nationals, it's not the "done" thing. I get it, Germany was in a bad place, the Chancellor came along and promised a better life for the working and middle classes - but he had once tried and failed to overthrow the government, it really should have been a clue. Most of the Germans I know are young, their parents, maybe even grandparents weren't even alive at the time - but there are a few, who would have only been children at the time - but they were here nonetheless. It hurts my heart, and today with half a story (I am aware this is a work of fiction) left to read, I don't want to live here.
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