This novel
is narrated from the perspective of three characters. From the first person point of view, we get
the story of Marijke de Graaf, a member of the Dutch resistance, who, along
with her husband, is captured by the Germans.
She chooses to work in a brothel servicing prisoners in the Buchenwald
Concentration Camp because she believes her husband has been interred at that
camp. Then we meet Karl Müller, an SS officer, who encounters Marijke and ends up regularly
seeking her company as a respite from his duties as the second-in-command at
Buchenwald. The third character lives in
a different place and time: Argentina in
1977. Luciano Wagner, a journalism
student, is arrested and becomes one of “the disappeared” during Argentina’s
Dirty War.
As one
would expect given the settings, the subject matter is heavy. Both Marijke and Luciano want to resist
becoming collaborators but also want to survive. Can they be forgiven their choices? Can Karl be forgiven his activities on behalf
of the Reich? The reader sees the
extremes of human beings’ capacity for evil, and the descriptions of prisoner
torture are sometimes graphic.
The author
seems to have done considerable research.
I had read about comfort women, women and girls forced into sexual
slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during
World War II, but I was unaware that the Germans had brothels for non-Jewish
prisoners as a reward for productivity and to create an incentive to
collaborate. Likewise, I knew little
about the treatment of political dissidents during Argentina’s Dirty War.
There are
interesting parallels among the characters and their situations. For example, Karl keeps trying to live up to
his father’s expectations of wartime glory and Luciano struggles to get the
affection of his cold, aloof father. Marijke
describes Karl as someone “trying to be two men at once” just as she sees
herself as conflicted too: “I’d always
taken pride in being sensible and loyal, so who was this stranger who’d betray
all that for something as primal as desire” (205)? Homosexuals are targeted in both places. And then there’s the semblance of ordinary
life found in both prisons: Luciano asks
“But I don’t get how these officers live
on the floor below us. Some have their
wives and children with them. It just
doesn’t – how can they go about their daily lives knowing what surrounds them? .
. . How can anyone eat steak and drink Champagne while we starve overhead in
soiled clothes?” (126 – 127). In
Buchenwald, SS officers live in villas
along with their wives and children, and while the inmates starve, Karl has his
own cook and attends the Kommandant’s cocktail parties and meals where food and
drink are found in abundance.
Some
readers have questioned the realism of the epilogue, but I have more of an
issue with the ending of Marijke’s story.
Given the timeline, her ability to keep the secret from Theo does not
seem credible. Her desire to remain
silent is perfectly understandable, especially after she sees the fate of the moffenhoer (373), but could she really
continue her deception? Initially, I
questioned the ending of Luciano’s narrative, but some cursory research
indicated that what is described did indeed often happen.
The dust
jacket describes the book as “a novel about love” but it is certainly not a
romance. It is more about love versus
lust, love of country, and filial love. It
touches on homosexual love. It also asks
what love can forgive. And in some ways,
the book serves as a warning: this is what
can happen when governments foster discrimination and curb opposition.
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