read, write, repeat.

I don’t know what’s up with me, but I must have caught the Chris Bohjalian bug or something. The last time I was at the library, Skeletons At The Feast was one of the few books by an author I recognized. In fact, I was actively seeking another Bohjalian, even though  I wasn’t crazy about The Double Bind (I mean, I liked it, but I didn’t love it). 

So, I came away with Skeletons At The Feast. I brought it with me to my cottage, where I turned to it when I grew bored of The Bishop’s Man. I was instantly sucked in and finished it less than 24 hours later. 

Skeletons At The Feast tells the story of the Emmerich family’s flight across Germany, in an attempt to escape the invading Russian army in the waning months of the Second World War. This main story intersects with the story of Uri Singer, a young Jewish man who has been impersonating various Nazi officials and soldiers throughout the war as an attempt at survival, and Cecile, a young French Jewish woman who is one of the many marched across Europe during the Death March. 

Skeletons At The Feast is fairly unique when it comes to literature focused on the Second World War, as it tells the story of ordinary German people living in Hitler’s Third Reich. Anna Emmerich, the 18-year-old protagonist, comes from a wealthy farming family living in rural Germany. She and her family are, in my opinion, an excellent example of what the average German citizen was like at the time. In literature that focuses upon the Second World War, the protagonists are usually Jewish, British, French resisters, or Germans who are running some sort of underground Jewish railway or something. 

The Emmerichs are members of the Nazi party, which might seem shocking, until you remember that the average German citizen was probably a member of the Nazi party. The Nazis did horrible, unspeakable things, but to many contemporary Germans, they were welcomed with open arms. The Emmerichs joined in order to make it easier to make financial transactions to keep their farm running; Anna’s mother, Mutti, has a framed picture of Hitler in the parlour. Hitler, in addition to commiting inhuman atrocities, also imbued hope in a generation of Germans: he was an unstoppable, charismatic, political force, and very attractive in the eyes of people who wanted to believe in the good of German people once more. ****

That being said, the Emmerichs are not bad people; we’re trained to instinctively associate Nazi with evil, but what we fail to recognize is that many people, like the Emmerichs, were unknowingly complicit in the atrocities that went on. Yes, they are members of the Nationalist Socialist Party, but none of them are aware of what is truly happening to the Jews.

Since so many of the literary narratives about the Second World War come from the POV of people who are not average Germans, it was really, really interesting to read about them. It’s a good reminder that there is always another side to a story. It was especially interesting, in my opinion, to read about the Emmerich’s fear of the invading Russians, and it was shocking to hear about the ways in which the Russian soldiers conducted themselves. We tend to assume that anyone on the Allied side was a saint. Not so much. 

I also enjoyed the love story between Anna, and Callum, a Scottish POW travelling with her family. What? I picked it for a relaxing cottage read. 

Have any of you ever read Skeletons At The Feast? What were your thoughts? 

****note: Please, PLEASE, I don’t want anyone to interpret this as some sort of pro-Nazi or pro-Hitler tract. I am completely disgusted by the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, et cetera, and usually avoid such literature because I find that the level of human depravity displayed only makes me feel sick. 

That being said, as a student of history, and a keen observer of human behavior (at least, I like to think so…), I recognize the truth of what I said above. Hitler was, initially, beloved by the German people, and one cannot blame them. When you study the effects of the Treaty of Versailles (and the entire aftermath of the First World War) on Germany’s morale and economy, Hitler’s rise to power seems obvious and inevitable. Couple that with a study of the intense anti-Semitism that had been brewing in Europe for the last century, and it all comes into even sharper focus. 

Please don’t confuse my acceptance of these facts with any sort of neo-Nazism on my behalf. That could not possibly be further from the truth. 

On a lighter note, I’d like to thank Grade 10 Canadian History for making that explanation possible.