A Storm Unleashed by Carol Matas

Twelve-year-old Marianne (Mia) Kaufmann lives in Berlin with her father, Dr. Adam Kaufman who is a Jewish veterinarian who owns his own clinic.  Mia's mother Johanna died from an infection she contracted shortly after Mia was born. Mia's parents met when her father was attending to the animals on her mother's family's farm. This farm is where Mia's mother's parents -- that is Mia's Oma and Opa still live. Ever since her mother's death, Mia's Auntie Lil, who is her mother's sister, has been coming into the city from Monday to Friday to keep house and make lunch and dinners. She returns to the family farm on the weekends to help Opa with the chores.

The novel opens on May 3, 1935.  Mia is sitting on a park bench in the afternoon observing birds. Beside her is her beloved Max, her German shepherd. Mia has just noted a common redstart when a girl in the unifrom of the League of German Girls approaches her and demands that she give Max to her. Quickly Mia puts her notebook into her backpack and bolts down the street with the girl in pursuit. After slipping through the lobby of a nearby apartment building, Mia makes for the train station and boards the train that will take her to Oma and Opa's farm. She needs to get away from Berlin as fast as possible to save Max. Mia remembers that her father gave her Max because of what happened two years earlier in 1933.

At that time, Hitler had been appointed Chancellor only three months ago, and his Nazi party is now in power in Germany. Mia had not attended school that day, April 1st because of a headache and was allowed to accompany her father to his veterinarian clinic. But as they were going downstairs they met her friend, Sam Landenberg whose parents own a sweet shop. Mia decided to go with Sam to his family's sweet shop and while there they hear the breaking of glass coming from Herr Schwatz's hardware store next door. With Herr Landenberg leading the way, Mia and Sam found Herr Schwartz on the ground, bleeding after having been attacked by men in brown uniforms. The men paint Jewish stars on the sweets shop and stand outside with signs urging customers not to buy from Jewish shops. Sam was angry at Mia whom he accuses of not paying attention to what has been happening in Germany. 

As Mia's friend Sam explained, one of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was to start a trade war with Germany's neighbours, Denmark and Sweden, placing taxes on good coming from those countries. This had affected the Germany economy but Hitler and the Nazis blamed the Jewish population for the poor economy.  While the other customers in the shop believe this will pass, Sam doesn't think so. Mia tries to go back to her books and her birds but two weeks later, something else happened.

It was her father's birthday. Mia, her Auntie Lil and her friends, Frieda Liebermann and Sam bake a lemon cake for her father but instead of her friends being allowed to stay, Auntie Lil asks them to leave. On that day her father arrives home with a German shepherd puppy whom Mia names Max. Mia began to train Max immediately and soon she and Max were inseperable.

Mia and Max arrive at Oma and Opa's farm which was built in 1790. The farm consists of a large, two-storey farmhouse, "...a large barn, a pig shed, a chicken coop surrounded by fencing to keep out the foxes and  a stable for the horses. There is also a granary and a hay shed." Mia tells Oma and Opa what happened and they immediately phone her home to let Auntie Lil know what has happened. Mia questions Oma as to whether she should have stood up to the Nazi girl, but Oma tells her that the time was during the election but the people chose differently. Opa sends Mia out to tend to the chickens and afterwards she takes Bertha out for a ride and then brushes the horse down. When Mia returns to the farmhouse, her father and Auntie Lil have arrived. Although Mia feels frightened to return to their home in Berlin, her father suggests that she simply avoid the park where she encountered the Nazi girl.

Mia returns to her public school. Things are very different with the Nazis in power: they have passed the Law Against Overcrowding which has resulted in many Jewish students leaving the public schools to attend Jewish only schools. Mia once had the highest marks in the class, was asked to help out by the teachers and had a wide circle of friends, but that isn't the case anymore. Her teacher, Frau Koch is a fanatic Nazi and begins every class by having Mia read aloud. This is followed by her humiliating Mia in front of her classmates while teaching the students Nazi propaganda and lies. She tells the class that although Mia is the classic Aryan beauty with her blond hair, blue eyes and round head, she has Jewish filth polluting her blood. Mia begs Rachel, the only other Jewish student in her class not to tell her father because she doesn't want her father to know either.

After school that day, Sam reveals that his family is fleeing to France and that Herr Schwarz and his family are also leaving as the Nazis have taken over their store. On Saturday with Sam now gone, Mia waits for her father for lunch. However when he doesn't show, Mia decides to visit his clinic. At the clinic, Mia is told by a strange man named Herr Fischer that her father is at the dog-training school and will be there all afternoon. Frau Weber, his receptionist, takes Mia to the school in her uncle's luxury car.

At the dog-training school which trains police dogs, Mia is shocked to see her father give the Nazi salute and call one of the men a name. He has her demonstrate teaching a skill in front of an SS officer. When they are at home later, Mia's father tells her that now she is expected to go to the dog-training school every Saturday to help train the dogs. While Mia is excited at this prospect, she is also upset at her father for not telling her about the school. He admits he doesn't know why the training center is so secret but he does reveal that the only reason he has been allowed to keep his clinic and train the dogs is because of his war service.

The next day Mia attends a training session and she watches as the men train the dogs to "bring down". Back at home, Mian and her father further discuss training dogs but also if people can be trained to act and think a certain way.

At school on Monday morning, Frau Koch continues indoctrinating the students about race using Mia as an example and telling a story which she insists proves that some people are "vermin". When Mia attempts to counter her propaganda, she is made to sit in the hallway the rest of the day. This upsets Mia so much that when she is climbing trees with Frieda she wants to let go and deliberately hurt herself. This shocks Frieda who comforts Mia and encourages her not to think this way. The two girls quickly leave the park with Max and go to Frieda's home to avoid the Nazi girl. There they meet Frieda's mother, Dr. Lieberman who was a gynecologist at the Berlin hospital but who now is only allowed to work privately as a midwife. Frieda's father, once a professor of literature now teaches at one of the Jewish schools. Frieda helps Mia get home safely with Max without encountering the Nazi girl.

The night Mia's father talks to her about what happened that day when she was with Frieda. It is at this point that Mia finally tells her father what is happening at the school. This leads to a family meeting at Opa and Oma's farm and Mia's father, grandparents and her Auntie Lil decide that they will tell the school that Mia has suddenly fallen ill with scarlet fever. Since it is almost the end of the school year, she will be recovering at the family farm. It is decided that after the summer, Mia will begin attending Frieda's Jewish school. Despite the sign saying Jews are not welcome in the farming community, Mia's father will come to visit the farm every Sunday. While on the farm, Mia begins training Max to "bring down". It is a skill that will save her and Frieda a few weeks later.

Mia returns to Berlin in August to start at the Jewish school. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the situation for Jews in Berlin is escalating. Mia's family barely escapes being attacked after Hitler's Storm Troopers target a restaurant and Frieda's father is viciously assaulted. It is Frieda and Mia who come up with a brilliant plan that will save both their families and offer them a chance at a new life. But it will require both sacrifice and separation.

Discussion

A Storm Unleashed is a another well-crafted historical fiction novel written by Canadian author Carol Matas. This thoughtful novel explores the events in prewar Germany as it gradually comes under complete control by the Nazis and their dictator Adolf Hitler. 

Carol Matas explains in her Author's Note how she came to write about Hitler's dog army. "...it was an accidental discovery -- while researching another book about the Holocaust I came across an article on Hitler's army of 200,000 dogs. The largest dog-training school was at Grunheide, just outside of Berlin. They trained 2000 dogs at a time. The school pretended to be a training facility for police dogs so that they would not overtly break the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which had imposed a limit of 100,000 dogs on Germany for military purposes. K-9 army units were trained at Grunheide and scattered throughout police units so as not to arouse suspicion." As Matas points out in her note, these dogs are present in almost all books and movies about the Holocaust. In those movies, the Nazi dogs are always shown as very vicious and invoking deep fear. Matas writes that "...without these dogs, the roundups of Jewish people, the train evacuations, even keeping order in the concentrations camps, would not have been possible..." 

The novel is set in prewar Berlin, in the mid 1930's as Hitler begins to establish his grip on Germany. 1935 was a critical year for Hitler as this was the year Hitler began to rearm Germany. He established the Luftwaffe and reintroduced conscription to bring the German army up to half a million men - both breaking the Treaty of Versailles.  Although she states in her Author's Note that she leaves the discussion of how Hitler was able to come to power in Germany, Matas does use several characters to discuss how Hitler has come to power and why people believe what he is telling them. 

At the beginning of the novel, Mia is focused on her books, training Max and her bird watching. Her friend Sam tells Mia, who he considers as not having kept up on the situation in Germany, that Hitler began targeting allies with tariffs on their goods, and when the economy began to slow, he began blaming the Jewish population. Mia believes that because she hasn't been paying attention, she didn't know what to do when she was confronted by the Nazi girl who wanted to take her dog. This event changes Mia, because it forces her to begin thinking about what is happening in Germany.

Mia questions why people elected Hitler and what they were thinking. Her Oma explains, "They weren't really thinking at all...They were feeling something. They were feeling mad and wanted someone to fix everything."  At school, her fanatical teacher Frau Koch teaches the lie that "the Treaty of Versailles was used against Germany, and that Germany was not responsible for the war." which Mia discovers through her own research is simply not true.

As Hitler's control over Germany deepens and his agenda against the Jewish people becomes more organized, Mia believes they should stay and fight but Sam explains why many Jewish people are leaving. "There is no court to turn to because all the judges who stood for the law rather than for Hitler are gone -- fired or resigned or working for the Nazis now. There's no lawyer to hire because all the lawyers who believed in the real laws, not Hitler's laws, are gone -- fired or resigned or working for the Nazis. There's no newspaper that will uncover this story and tell it to its readers because the only papers that are allowed to publish are those that print Nazi propaganda.  So we stay and do what?"

As Mia considers the training happening at the school, she begins to ask questions about whether dogs can be trained to be bad dogs and this leads her to question if people can be trained to bad. Her father tells her that it might be possible to train someone to treat people badly but that a way to tell if something is wrong is that if you don't want to be treated a certain way do not do that to others. This leads Mia to consider the Nazi girl who wants to steal her dog, Max. "Did she choose to believe in the Nazis and their hatred of Jews? Did she choose to be a bully and take what she wanted? Or has she been trained? By her parents? By her classmates? By the newspapers and all the horrible things they print? By teachers like Frau Koch, who every day drums into our heads how noble Nazis are and how vicious Jews are?" Mia considers that if people are similar to dogs and can be trained to believe something. She notes that every day at school they "...are forced to repeat how great Hitler is, how great the Nazis are -- and how terrible the Jews are. When do people stop repeating this and start believing it?"

Once Mia is out of the public school and being taught at her grandparents by her Auntie Lil she comes to realize just  how much propaganda they are being fed at school instead of what really happened in history. "It is an odd feeling knowing a large portion of the country believes things that are simply not true. I can't help but wonder if I also believe things that aren't true. If so, how would I know?" Auntie Lil explains that "People who are curious and look at all sides of an issue are less likely to turn into lemmings who would follow anyone and do anything. People like the Nazis are swept up in a fever, a fervour, a blind obedience."  Mia sees just how far this fervour goes when she and her family and friends are attacked at a restaurant.

The novel also considers just how far one should go in terms of cooperation with evil, to simply protect oneself and those dear to them. Mia learns that two of her Jewish classmates are terrified of Max because it was a German shepherd dog who helped in the arrest of their father who was eventually murdered. This leads her to confront her father and he reveals that he has learned that Hitler is rebuilding Germany's military, likely in preparation for war. 

Matas includes two interesting scenes in her novel. The first is a series of dreams that Mia has involving her dead mother who advises her to trust her father. These two dreams are both puzzling but comforting to Mia. The other interesting scene is her discussion with a rabbi regarding race and how the Nazis have twisted their view of the human race to exclude certain people like the Jews so they can be murdered.

A Storm Unleashed, the title of which is a reference to Hitler training and unleashing trained and vicious army dogs against the German Jews, is well-written and will appeal to young readers who enjoy animal stories and historical fiction. 

When reading this novel it's hard not to think about the parallels between what happened in post-World War I Germany and what is currently happening south of the border in the United States. It's interesting to see how there is an economy to the breakdown of democratic rule. As did Germany in 1933, the United States has also legitimately elected a leader who has promised to make the country prosperous again using an agenda that has been previously described and promoted. It includes focusing the blame on a specific group (illegal immigrants) for many of the country's complex problems, targeting that group with mass roundups, incarceration and no due process, targeting political opponents, the judiciary who may rule against policies and the media who may speak out against them. It includes threatening to annex weaker countries (Panama, Greenland, and Canada), promoting falsehoods about trade, breaking existing treaty agreements and initiating a punishing tariff war with its most faithful allies.  A Storm Unleashed asks young readers to consider how a people can subscribe to ideologies and policies that in the end can have far-reaching national and global effects. It is a question well worth considering and this short novel offers readers that opportunity.

Book Details:

A Storm Unleashed by Carol Matas

Toronto: Scholastic Canada Ltd.      2025

236 pp.

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron

Bluebird is a historical fiction novel based on a secret program code named Project Bluebird. The author has imagined a story that might have happened at the end of World War II as the Soviets and Americans raced to obtain secrets from the collapsed Nazi regime in Germany. In the novel there are two alternating narratives, that of Inge von Emmerich which begins in February, 1945 and of Eva Gerst which begins in August 1946. 

It is February, 1945. After taking her father's car for a joyride with her friend Annemarie Toberentz, sixteen-year-old Inge von Emmerich sneaks the car back home. Kurt, her family's chauffeur offers to clean the mud off it in exchange for two honey cakes. While Herr Gundersen gives seven-year-old Adolf and ten-year-old Erich their violin lessons, Inge enters her father's study. On his desk she sees a file with her name on it, something that puzzles her. When Mama finds her in the study listening to Papa's radio, she slaps her and sends her to her room.

Inge's papa works in a camp "rehabilitating the enemies of Germany. Teaching them to obey. To be better. To be useful and productive." The next day, Inge's mama pulls her from her League of German Girls meeting, and they drive quickly home. At home, her mama tells Inge, Erich and Adolf to each pack a bag with three changes of clothes and a coat. Inge's mother tells them nothing about what is happening or where they are going. Kurt drives them and Helga is also brought along. They don't go to Berlin  near papa's camp, as Inge expected, but instead drive to their summer lodge. And when they arrive, the car is unloaded of boxes and baskets of food, much more than three days worth.

At the summer house everyone is sent to their rooms. In her Mama's room next door, Inge hears the radio but cannot make out what is being broadcast. Kurt leaves during the night but leaves a car key and money for Inge under the door. After a week at the lodge, Inge questions her mama as to whether papa is coming. Her mama tells her that he is busy winning the war, creating a new world for them. Her abusive manner towards Inge leads her to leave the lodge and run to the Kleimann's house next door. Inge rips off some of the boards and spends time playing the piano until the house is hit by a bomb. Terrified she races home to find her mother has murdered Helga, Erich and Adolf and shot herself in the head. On the radio, Inge hears that Hitler is dead and the enemy is in Berlin.

Inge manages to start the car and drives to their home in Berlin, hoping to find her papa. As she enters the road near the house, she passes a truck of Soviet soldiers and doesn't stop for her friend, Annemarie who is in the field running towards her. Their home is in ruins and her papa is not there. While Inge searches for the file with her name in her papa's study, she hears soldiers voices downstairs. She hears Annemarie's voice and when she begins screaming, a terrified Inge hides underneath the large desk in the study. After the soldiers leave, Inge rescues the unconscious Annemarie and drives to her papa's camp. The car breaks down just a kilometer away, so leaves Annemarie in the car unconscious and walks to the camp. There Inge sees the most horrific sight imaginable: piles of human bodies.

At first Inge believes this is the work of the Soviet Communists. She meets a man in faded striped clothing from the camp, whom she believes is a prisoner of the Communists. She asks him about her father but he thinks her father is one of the prisoners. As the former prisoner starts to take Inge to the man in charge, she notices that the soldiers are Russian. She begins to realize that the people in the camp were prisoners of the Nazis. When she asks about a man named von Emmerich, the former prisoner tells her about the doctor and how "He wanted to know what he could make you say make you do. How much you could endure. He made sure you were crazy, before you died." He tells her the prisoners were "lab rats", "unworthy of life" and that everyone running the camp has been arrested....except the doctor. Inge flees the camp, realizing that everything she's been told is a lie.

August, 1946, sees Eva Gerst and her companion, Brigit Heidelmann watching as their ship pulls into New York harbour. Brigit doesn't speak and is easily upset so Eva leads her back to their cabin to get their suitcases. Both girls have papers sewn into the lining of their skirts. Miss Schaffer, in charge of their group leads the thirty-eight refugees off the ship and into customs. 

Eventually Eva and Brigit are met by Elizabeth Whittlesby, who goes by the name of Bets. She is from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and will help to resettle Eva and Brigit. She takes them to her car where they find a young man named Jacob (Jake) Katz in the back seat. Eva notices that he has "the most extraordinary beautiful hazel-green eyes". Brigit is wary of Jake, but when he begins to play the harmonica, she is distracted and smiles. Eva has noticed they are being watched at the airport and then followed by a man with shiny shoes in a car.

They arrive at Powell House and Eva and Brigit are assigned to the blue room. But when Eva goes to find a phone, she runs into the man with the shiny shoes who's been following them. He warns Eva not to talk about her father to anyone and to hold her end of the bargain, to bring the US government her father. He hands her his card with the name of Mr. Cruickshanks on it. Eva knows this is not his real name. And she also knows her father won't be using his real name either. The United States government wants not only her father but also Anna Ptaszynska who is a killer.

The key to finding her father might just be Dr. Schneider, a doctor at Columbia hospital who had been corresponding with her father over research. Eva believes she must find her father before Cruickshanks and the U.S. government do, or there will be no justice. And justice for herself and for twenty-seven people, whose names she has memorized is what matters most.

Discussion

Bluebird is an intriguing historical fiction novel based on Project Bluebird, a top secret program run by the CIA from 1949 to 1950. Not much is known about Project Bluebird except that it was a mind control program devised to determine if special techniques such as hypnosis and certain drugs could be used in interrogation and conditioning. It also sought to understand if it could be used to obtain accurate information from willing and unwilling subjects, and if it were possible to control the physical and mental actions of willing and unwilling subjects. There were many other goals as well, such as how long post-hypnotic suggestion could be retained, can a person's personality be altered and if so, how long will it hold. Cameron offers more detail in her detailed Author's Note at the back of the novel.

Cameron draws her readers in immediately with the alternating narratives of Inge von Emmerich, daughter of a German doctor who works at a camp, set in the final days of World War II as the Soviet army moves into eastern Germany, and that of Eva Gerst set eighteen months later in August, 1946 as she and a fellow German, Brigit Heidelmann are arriving to start a new life in America. Eventually, these two narratives converge, with readers likely coming to understand the connection between Inge and Eva beforehand.

However, the guessing doesn't stop there: readers begin to wonder who Eva and Brigit really are.  Eva/Inge is on a mission to find her papa, known as "the doctor" at  Sachsenhausen Concentration camp located in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. In the novel when Eva discovers the truth of her papa's work, she is horrified and determined to mete out "justice". As it happens,  the Allies discover her identity as the missing doctor's daughter, and she is offered passage to North America to help locate him. Eva's determined to find him not for the Allies, but so that she can kill him. 

 

As the search goes on for her father, Eva begins to learn more about her father's research and why the U.S. and even the Soviets want him. Cruikshanks sums it up for Eva: "Imagine, Fraulein, if the mind was a moldable object. If memories could be plucked out...and replaced. Imagine if we could say a word, and have a captured soldier walk back across the lines and disable his own country's weapons. If an agent never blew their cover, because they were unaware that they were an agent at all? Imagine if a man like Hitler could have been removed years ago with one of his own officials...."

 

But Eva sees the dangers in such a program. "You could make them 'better', Eva thinks. And who gets to decide who is better and who isn't?" Cruikshanks also believes that Anna Ptaszynska was her father's first and most successful experiment. Who Anna is becomes a source of conflict and personal terror for Eva. At first she believes that Brigit/Annemarie is Anna but then she begins to suspect she might be based on her shadowy memories of events that occurred when she was very young. The files she has stolen from her father's study, seem to confirm this. All of this feeds on the profound conflict Eva is experiencing over her own identity.

 

Eventually, Eva learns the truth from her father about Anna. He tells her that Cruikshanks would love to have an Anna but that he doesn't need her. "He only thinks he does. The process of splitting the personality, of placing a hypnotic suggestion, bending a mind to a certain will, it's all so....messy. Overcomplicated, inefficient, and the outcomes are impossible to predict. When all you really need to make another person do what you wish is the application of the right leverage...."

Eva discovers that her papa has manipulated people to save himself, but  this backfires when he is taken by the Soviets and not the Americans as he had hoped. Eventually, through the efforts of Jake,  Eva learns her true identity and discovers that maybe this justice was for herself and her lost family. 

 

As the story progresses, Eva changes from an uninformed teenager living in a Nazi regime to understanding just what that regime was doing to people it deemed were "less". Her life immediately after the war is consumed by revenge and obtaining what she believes is justice. But in America, events play out in a way that sees justice determined differently than what Eva intended. She also begins to fall in love with Jake. When he leaves for a time, Eva feels fear for the future. In the end, Jake's return suggests a happier, better future. Their love offers readers hope, that in spite of the most horrible of events, there can be a life worth living.

Bluebird is another excellent novel by Sharon Cameron: there's a storyline filled with twists, shady characters, mystery and a touch of romance. There have been so many novels written about World War II, but Cameron has found a new aspect to write about which should peak the interest of those readers looking for something a bit different.

 

For information on Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp: https://www.sachsenhausen-sbg.de/en/history/1936-1945-sachsenhausen-concentration-camp/

Book Details:

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron
New York: Scholastic Press    2021
438 pp.

Kafka and the Doll by Larissa Theule

One day Franz Kafka and his friend Dora Diamant were walking through a park in the city of Berlin when they encountered a young girl crying. When Kafka questioned her as to why she was crying, she told him her doll, Soupsy was lost. Kafka told the girl, whose name was Irma, that Soupsy was not lost but simply travelling as dolls like to do. He also told her  that Soupsy had written her a letter but that it was at home in the pocket of his coat. As a volunteer postman, Kafka explained that he would bring the letter to her tomorrow. 

The next day Kafka brought Soupsy's letter to Irma. It revealed that Soupsy had impulsively jumped into the basket of a passing bicycle and was now on her way to hiking via a train! Kafka assures Irma that Soupsy will write again because "People on adventures like to tell about them."

A second letter comes, followed by a third which reveals that Soupsy is in Paris, eating croissants!  

Soupsy travels to many different places including England, Barcelona, Morocco, and Egypt. Although she does many exciting things in each of these countries, her letters get shorter.

Irma notices that Kafka has a cough like what her grandfather had. Then one day Kafka does not show up at the park. After several days, Dora arrives at the park with a letter from Soupsy. Dora explains to Irma, that Herr Kafka has a headache behind his eyes. Finally one day Kafka comes to the park. He is pale and Irma suspects this will be the last time. The letter from Soupsy states that she is going on an expedition to Antarctica. It will be her last letter as she will not be able to write from there. Soupsy tells Irma she was proud to be her doll.

Irma tells Herr Kafka that some day she wants to travel like Soupsy and experience the things she did. Kafka gives her a notebook and tells her to write about her adventures so that they remain. The two part ways, "...one to play and explore and one, finally to sleep."

Discussion

Larissa Theule has crafted an touching fictional account of an event that Dora Diamant, Kafka's lover related years after his death. The identity of the young girl was never discovered and the letters were lost, so only Dora's account survives. Theule has adapted the story to fit modern expectations. In her Author's Note at the back of the picture book, Theule writes, "Dora said Kafka struggled to know how to end the letter campaign and finally decided to have the doll get married and start a family of her own. Most likely the reflected the girl's understanding of the world and her place in it, for girls in the 1920s had few options for their futures apart from marriage. But times have changed, and I felt the ending should reflect the wide world of possible futures available to children (and dolls!) today, which is why I sent Soupsy on a scientific expedition to Antarctica."

Theule's Soupsy is likely nothing like that of Kafka because as Theule states, "...no one can write like Kafka." The letters written to a lonely girl, were Kafka's attempt to "heal a child's wounded heart". He would have understood her pain, given his own difficult upbringing under a domineering father. Accompanying her version of this story is the digitally created artwork of Rebecca Green.

You can read more about Franz Kafka at Franz Kafka Online.

Book Details:

Kafka and the Doll by Larissa Theule
New York: Penguin Random House LLC      2021

DVD: A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life is a biopic about Austrian conscientious objector and Catholic saint, Franz Jagerstatter. Written and directed by Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life is a jewel that simply must be seen by anyone who is interested in studying the past, learning from history and discovering those hidden acts that only now are coming to light.

The film opens with the voice of Franz Jagerstatter stating "I thought that we could build our nest high up in the trees, Fly away like birds to the mountains."  This is followed by black and white archival footage of Hitler being welcomed by the masses, speaking at huge rallies with cheering crowds. Austria has become part of Hitler's Third Reich. Events will unfold that will change Franz's life forever.

Franz and his wife Fani are working in the fields of the farm high in the mountains near the village of St. Radegund, Austria, in 1939. Husband and wife are a team, working together scything, planting potatoes and raising their three beautiful daughters.

Fani reminisces about how she and Franz met, how her sister now lives with them, how life in their village is filled with hard work, good neighbours and is happy. But overhead the sound of an approaching airplane hints at the troubles to come.

In 1940 Franz finds himself at the Enns Military Base doing training. There he meets a fellow recruit, Waldland who is always happy. In a letter to her husband, Fani reveals that France has surrendered and that she's heard they are allowing the farmers to return home. 

At the military base, Franz and the others watch propaganda movies about Germany's conquests of France and Russia. But while the other soldiers clap enthusiastically, Franz is deeply disturbed. He sees the destruction and the human cost and writes to his wife, "Oh my wife. What's happened to our country? To the land we love?"

Summer turns to winter and then to spring, and Franz finally returns home. Fani and the children are ecstatically happy. During the wheat harvest in the fall, one of the farmers tells Franz he has been called up. He thought there would be peace but the war simply goes on. To Franz's question,  "Do you believe in what we are fighting for?" the farmer answers, "Not really." As Franz and the village miller Trakl watch their neighbours embrace Nazism, Trakl questions Franz, " Don't they know evil when they see it?..." Knowing Franz does not support the Nazis, he warns him to be careful.

In a conversation with his parish priest, Father Furthauer, a troubled Franz reveals that if he is called up he cannot serve. "We're killing innocent people, raiding other countries, preying on the weak. Now the priests call them heroes, even saints. The soldiers that do this. It might be that the other ones are the heroes. The ones who defend their homes against the invaders."  Father asks Franz if he's considered the consequences of his actions, for his family. He tells Franz he would most likely be shot and his sacrifice would benefit no one. He does agree to speak to the bishop about Franz's situation.

Franz's internal conflict deepens and Fani notices a change in her once carefree husband. He is thoughtful and worried. When brown shirts show up to collect for the war effort, Franz refuses, telling them he has nothing to give. This leads to a visit from Kraus, the mayor of Radegund as to why he's not supporting his people and the war effort. Franz however,  remains unmoved by the mayor's pleas.

Franz and Fani go to see Bishop Joseph Calasanz Fliesser. But the bishop is of no help to Franz. On the way home Franz tells Fani, "I think he was afraid I was a spy. They don't dare commit themselves or it could be their turn next." Eckinger, a neighbour explains to Franz that the bishop is going along, trying to appease the Nazis, in the hopes the regime will be more tolerant towards the church. Priests are being sent to concentration camps and church possessions are being banned.

The villagers begin to ostracize Franz and Fani. Franz's mother is upset with Fani, blaming her for changing her son. The mayor violently confronts Franz, telling him they must defend their country and that he is traitor to his people and his country.  Despite this Fani supports Franz. She tells him their prayers will be answered, if they are faithful to God, he will be faithful to them. 

Eventually their worst fears are confirmed: Franz is called up. The couple are devastated for they both know that if Franz follows his conscience, he will never return home. In March of 1943,  Franz reports to Enns for military service. He refuses to take a pledge to Hitler and is promptly arrested and put in prison. So begins his short journey of hidden resistance and ultimately to martyrdom.

Discussion

Written and directed by Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life portrays the events leading to Franz Jagerstatter refusal to support the Nazi regime and war, which he considered a great evil. As a result, Franz was arrested, imprisoned and guillotined at 4pm on August 9, 1943 in prison.

A Hidden Life is a deeply moving film that asks viewers to consider the role of conscience in our everyday lives, to explore the concepts of just war, the lost virtue of moral courage, and the possibility of sacrificing everything for our most deeply held convictions. It does so by setting this moving human drama against the majestic backdrop of mountains, waterfalls, blooming meadows and fast-flowing rivers.

Franz and Franziska on their wedding day

Franz Jagerstatter (played by actor August Diehl), whose Catholic faith blossomed after his marriage to Franziska Schwaninger (Valerie Pachner), a devout Catholic,  came to believe that Nazism and Catholicism were completely irreconcilable. When he saw the goals of the Nazi war, to enslave other nations, to plunder their resources, wealth and culture, and their determination to murder an entire race of human beings, he knew he could not participate in any way. To do so was to cooperate with a great evil.

When he was called up for a third time in 1943, Franz reported to the military base at Enns, Austria but refused to complete his military service. According to the Reich Court Martial  “that, due to his religious views, he refused to perform military service with a weapon, that he would be acting against his religious conscience were he to fight for the Nazi State…that he could not be both a Nazi and a Catholic… that there were some things in which o­ne must obey God more than men; due to the commandment ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’, he said he could not fight with a weapon. However, he was willing to serve as a military paramedic.” Interestingly in Malik's film, his offering to serve as a paramedic is somewhat glossed over. In fact, in real life, his request to serve as a medic was denied.

In A Hidden Life, Franz is repeatedly told that his conscientious objection would serve no purpose and therefore was meaningless. He is called a traitor, that his actions are sinful. His lone resistance would be hidden - no one would ever know of it, it would not alter the course of the war, nor stop it. Time and again he was told he had an obligation to his country, his people and to his family. 

Opposition surrounds him on all sides. His Catholic parish priest and even his Catholic bishop were of no help. Hoping for some guidance from his bishop, Franz is told that he "has a duty to the Fatherland, the church tells you so." and that he must obey those in authority over him. Franz asks the bishop, "If our leaders are not good...if they're evil. What does one do?" His bishop has no answer for him.

Before reporting for military service in 1943, Father Furthauer (played by Tobais Moretti) challenges Franz, "Does a man have the right to let himself be put to death for truth? Could it possibly please God?" He tells Franz that God wants us to be happy and not bring suffering on ourselves. In response to Father Furthauer's rationalizing, Franz astutely counters that we must stand up to evil. 

Franz talking with Judge Lueben

In prison, Franz's lawyer tries desperately and repeatedly to get his client to sign a paper. He doesn't understand Franz's defiance asking him, "How do you know what is good or bad?" At his military tribunal in July 1943, Judge Lueben meets with Franz privately. The Reich judge is deeply puzzled about Franz's objections and berates him, "Do you imagine that anything you do will change the course of this war? That anyone outside this court will ever hear of you? No one will be changed. The world will go on as before."  And yet at the end of his time with Franz, one senses that maybe Lueben does understand, that he is condemning a good man.

Franz's intense spiritual conflict is set against the backdrop of the spectacular beauty of the Alps. Malik filmed these scenes in the Italian Alps while the scenes in the farmhouse were shot in the Jagerstatter home in Radegund. The cinematography is one of the most outstanding features of this film. Scenes of Franz and Fani working together, scything wheat, running their mill, milking cows, sowing crops, cutting wood, baking bread, playing with their young children, and spending time alone, portray a simple life of honest but hard work. Set against a backdrop of breathtakingly beautiful scenes of mountains, misty forest, rushing streams, and golden wheat fields, Malik captures the beauty of nature  High in the Austrian Alps, in the tiny village of Radegund, one can feel the presence of God. These scenes of joyful family life and a loving marriage show and Fani's unwavering support sustain Franz.

As it turns out, all who told Franz that his sacrifice would be meaningless and forgotten in the mists of time were wrong. Today he is a saint, his life the subject of a sublime film that has touched millions. On his beatification, Diocesan Bishop Dr. Ludwig Schwarz and Bishop Dr. Manfred Scheuer (Postulator of the beatification procedure) made this statement:

“Franz Jägerstätter is a prophet with a global view and a penetrating insight which very few of his contemporaries had at that time; he is a shining example in his fidelity to the claims of his conscience, an advocate of non-violence and peace, a voice of warning against ideologies, a deep-believing person for whom God really was the core and centre of life. His prophetic witness to Christian truth is based o­n a clear, radical and far-sighted analysis of the barbarism of the inhuman and godless system of Nazism, its racial delusions, its ideology of war and deification of the state, as well as its declared program of annihilating Christianity and the Church. His educated, mature conscience led him to say a resolute ‘No’ to Nazism and he was executed due to his consistent refusal to take up arms as a soldier in Hitler’s war.”
 
Those who wish to read more about Franz Jagerstatter's life are referred to the Diocese of Linz website.

The movie takes its title from a George Eliot quote from her book, Middlemarch:

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life..." Franz's life and his act of passive resistance were most definitely hidden and unhistoric. His life, lived faithfully and his refusal to participate in a evil war, have done good that none of us will fully know in this life.

A Hidden Life is a beautifully crafted film, with a cast who give outstanding performances. Malik challenges his audience to consider the life of a man who simply could not cooperate with evil. Ultimately his hidden resistance cost him his life. While the personal price was high, Franz Jagerstatter demonstrated that there was still some good in a very evil time.

Image credits:

Franz and Franzsika wedding photo: https://johnpwalshblog.com/2017/10/26/blessed-franz-jagerstatter-1907-1943-farmer-husband-and-father-conscientious-objector-and-martyr/ 

Franz with Judge Lueben: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/17-january/books-arts/film/film-review-a-hidden-life-cert-12a

Auslander by Paul Dowswell

This novel tells the fictional story of a young boy, Piotr Bruck, who is taken by the Nazis to Berlin to become a reclaimed German. While Piotr may have the ideal Aryan features, he soon learns his heart and mind do not subscribe to the Aryan ideals of race.

The novel opens with Piotr undergoing a terrifying physical exam in Warsaw where he is singled out because of his ideal Aryan features of blonde hair and blue eyes. In flashback, the reader learns that thirteen year old Piotr lived with his mother and father on their farm outside of Warsaw. For a time after the Germans invaded Poland, they believed they were safe, even though their farm was situated between the Russians and Germans. But when Russian and Germany begin to carve up Poland, his parents were killed and Piotr was driven from his home by German troops. Homeless and hungry, Piotr ends up in an orphanage in Warsaw.

Returning to the present, Piotr is taken from the orphanage along with many other boys and after a physical exam in which his features are measured and examined, he is grouped together boys who are to be sent back to Germany. His blonde hair and blue eyes and his near perfect German mark him as being of German blood -volksdeutsche. He along with others judged to be volkdsdeutsche are taken by Doctor Fischer of the Race and Settlement Office who runs this eugenics program, to be Germanized.

Piotr is sent to the Lebensborn hostel in Landsberg to await adoption by a German family. Meanwhile, Doctor Fischer contacts Professor Franz Kaltenbach who lives in Berlin with his wife, Liese, and their three daughters, twenty year old Elsbeth, thirteen year old Traudl and eight year old Charlotte. He encourages the Kaltenbachs to take Piotr into their home to raise him as a German citizen despite Kaltenbach's reservations about Piotr's Polish ancestry. Kaltenbach's reluctance is based on his work for the Nazi party.

Kaltenbach works at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Dahlem-Dorft, Berlin where he has been nvolved in a number of tasks that dealt with eugenics and racial purity. He had to determine the racial purity of the children from the Ostarbeiters (Eastern workers from Poland) as well as confirm the authenticity of the Ancestral Passports of candidates for the SS. Kaltenbach achieved his post at the Institute after the ethnic cleansing of all Jewish academics.

When Piotr returns home to Berlin with the Kaltenbachs, he is renamed Peter and is expected to hold the same views as his foster family regarding Jews and Slavs as well as politically support the Nazis.Peter is uncertain as to what to believe because his parents were divided on supporting the Nazis.  At first it seems that Peter and the Professor will have as good relationship as they share an interest in aircraft. Excited to finally have a safe place to live, Peter joins the Hitler-Jugend, attends school and even begins to see a girl in his neighbourhood, Anna Reiter. Peter even dreams of one day becoming a Luftwaffe pilot.

But Peter's comfort zone is challenged by the reality of life in Berlin when he sees Polish boys, the Ostarbeiters,  being overworked and starved, when he finds he cannot accept the German's blind faith in Hitler and when the Nazis ban anything different from what the party deems acceptable. Torn between his disgust at what the Nazis are doing and his fear of working against, Peter must decide make a choice - one that could cost ultimately cost him his life.

Discussion

Told from the third person omniscient point of view, Auslander provides a unique look a life in Berlin during the Second World War. Although most of the narration is from Peter's point of view, Dowswell also includes the perspectives of many other characters in the novel including Anna, Ula and Otto Reiter, Gerhart Segur and Franz Kaltenbach. It is precisely the use of different narrators that gives this novel its balanced approach. There are German characters who are "one hundred percenters" - those who completely believe in the Nazi propaganda such as Professor Kaltenbach and his wife. The Reiters represent those Germans who did not agree with the Nazi racial policies and who worked to mitigate the suffering of the Jews and those who were part of the resistance. Also portrayed are those such as Elsbeth who originally supported the Nazis but when the learned the truth of what they were doing, tried desperately to extricate themselves. And then of course there were many German citizens such as Segur who were terrorized by the Nazis into betraying neighbours and friends.

The fanaticism of the Nazis is well portrayed in the novel and Dowswell includes parts of speeches and texts used by the Nazis to foment hatred against Jews and other ethnic groups deemed undesirable and to promote war. Dowswell captures the time period brilliantly, showing how beautiful and sophisticated Berlin was in 1941 and yet how poisoned its people were with the rabid ideology of genetics and race. This was initially deceiving to someone like Peter who did not yet recognize the iron grip the Nazis had on life in Germany. As the tide in the war begins to turn, the rationalization of German citizens and their reluctance to doubt the Nazis is demonstrated. Even the bombing of Berlin doesn't seem to sway them.

One of the major themes in the novel is that of identity. Because Peter has lost his parents, he dearly wants to fit into German society. It is a classic search for identity but one which is even more poignant because of his circumstances. Peter is not allowed to be himself, nor to express his own views about what is happening. Instead, whether he agrees or not with Nazi policy, he must conform to the Nazi way of thinking or risk being sent to a work camp or perhaps worse. Gradually, as Peter's eyes are opened to what the Nazis are doing to ordinary people simply because they are different, Peter comes to understand the price of conformity both personally and for the country. Despite being very conflicted he begins to resist in subtle secret ways that lead to him becoming part of the resistance and risking everything.

This novel is well written and thrilling from beginning to end with a likable male protagonist - something not found in many historical fiction novels. The author based the character of Ula Reiter on two German women who heroically defied the Nazi regime in Berlin during the war. He also explains the origins of some of the ideas, speeches and events portrayed in the novel in a note at the back of the novel. This is historical fiction at it's very best - effectively providing readers with a sense of what life was like during this terrible conflict.
Highly recommended.

Book Details:
Auslander by Paul Dowswell
London: Bloomsbury            2009
295 pp.

In My Enemy's House by Carol Matas

In My Enemy's House is a well written piece of historical fiction by Canadian author Carol Matas. This novel tells the fictitious story of a young Jewish girl during the occupation of Poland by the Nazis in World War II.

Marisa Gingrich is a 15 year old Jewish girl living in Zloczow, a city in Poland that had been initially occupied by the Russians for two years until they were driven out by the German push into Russia. Marisa, who is the oldest child, lives with her Mama and Papa and her younger siblings, Fanny, Sarah, Yehuda, and Moishe. Unlike her siblings who have dark hair and brown eyes, Marisa has blonde hair and blue eyes - features common to the Ayran ideal, which will help her survive in these deadly times.

Initially, it seems all the Germans want is to use the Jews for slave labour, for cleaning and working in the factories. However, the local Ukrainians have formed a police service and are beginning to round up Jews.

Prior to all this, Marisa was leading a normal life as a young teenager, going to school, and even developing a crush on her "cousin", Shmuel, who is the sixteen year old step-son of her Uncle Avraham. When she and Shmuel are seen holding hands, her father tells her that she mustn't do this. The next day when Marisa's Papa goes to speak with his brother, Avraham, about this situation, they are both taken by the Ukrainian police. Shmuel tells Marisa's family that he followed their fathers and saw them loaded onto a freight train. Marisa feels terribly guilty over her father being taken, because she knows he would not have been there that day, if she and Shmuel hadn't held hands, and also because her last words to her father were defiant. She directs her anger towards Shmuel, who tells her to recognize that it is the Nazi's who are at fault.

Meanwhile the Nazis begin separating the Jews from the Poles, whom they consider useless and stupid. Himmler closes all the schools, Jews are forced to wear a white armband with a blue star of David, and they begin conducting "actions" in which large numbers of Jews are arrested and removed from the city. Some Jews are simply taken outside their homes and shot in the streets. Marisa's family is saved again and again by the kind actions of their Polish neighbour, Mr. Kraszewski, who was in the Polish military. When the Russians attacked Zloczow, Marisa's family hid him. Now he has been returning the favour by hiding her family in his attic whenever the Nazis come rounding up Jews.

Because of her looks, Marisa is able to pass herself off as Polish and therefore, get into line with the Poles for food. As the food situation becomes more dire and the Germans decide to round up all the Jews and place them in a ghetto, Marisa's mother and Shmuel tell Marisa that someone from their families must survive and that she can use her looks to pass herself off as Polish and go to Germany to work. Once again Mr. Kraszewski steps in and offers Marisa the chance to use a friend's daughter's papers to get into Germany. The irony of her situation is not lost on Marisa; she must go to Germany to survive the Nazi mass murder of her people.

As the situation worsens and Marisa's indecision about what to do deepens, she struggles with thoughts of suicide and despair as well as struggling with her belief in God. Eventually Marisa goes to Lvov and then on to Berlin in the hopes that she will survive the war. Will she ever see her family again? Will she and Shmuel ever meet again in this life?

Discussion

Carol Matas has crafted a well-written short novel that explores the meaning of forgiveness and faith when the world is succumbing to hate and chaos. When Fanny, Yehuda, Marisa and Shmuel are the only ones left, they struggle to decide what to do. Fanny announces that she hates God, but Marisa tells her that faith is important to fight evil.

The best and most interesting parts of this novel though revolve around Marisa's stay with a Berlin family whose father is a highly placed Nazi officer. Marisa manages to get hired on by Herr Reymann who owns a large farm and has three children ages ten, twelve, and fourteen. Unlike other German families, the Polish workers are invited to eat around the dinner table with the Reymann family, and when Marisa becomes seriously ill, Frau Reymann tends to her in a caring manner, genuinely concerned for Marisa's health. Yet the family plays a game called Jews Out and show Marisa a picture of their uncle doing his "important work" which shows German soldiers murdering naked Polish men, women and children in front of an open pit. Marisa struggles to understand what she is experiencing,

"I couldn't understand the world I lived in. It felt like a type of dream where nothing made sense. The children seemed so nice. Their parents, too. They were the kind of people who would probably never cheat or lie or steal. They were "good" people. And yet they could murder, with no problem. I had to conclude then that they saw Jews as not even human. They had to believe in that lie so deeply that murder was no long murder; torture and cruelty no long held the same meaning."

Matas uses the Reymann children to demonstrate how an entire population of a country could be brainwashed to believe that one race is superior to all others. In a turnabout, Marisa creates a lie about how her family has Aryan blood resulting in Frau Reymann allowing her daughter, Carolyn, to take Marisa to some of the Nazi functions. At these functions she sees the Germans doing volunteer work mending clothes taken from murdered Jews and occupied countries to help those in Germany.

Both the Reynmann's and Marisa have to deal with falsehoods about each other. For example, the Reymann children are taught that all Jews have slimy voices, ugly gestures, huge hooked noses and small beady eyes all the while unknowingly having taken in a beautiful Jewish girl. And Marisa must come to terms with her understanding of all Nazi's being evil as she struggles to comprehend Frau Reymann's motherly touches even though she is a Nazi. In a dream her father tells her that she must find the presence of God even in her enemies, echoing Shmuel's admonition to keep love in her heart rather than hate.

In My Enemy's House is highly recommended for its thoughtful treatment of  the Holocaust, incorporating the themes of the nature of evil, identity, forgiveness and redemption. As with many historical novels, maps of Poland and Germany would have been helpful to help young readers understand the geography of the story.

Book Details:
In My Enemy's House by Carol Tatas
Toronto: Scholastics Canada Ltd.     1999
158 pp.