Firstly, I should say that I was very excited to receive this book preview from the publisher, Allen & Unwin. Having worked with displaced persons from WW2 in the past who had shared their amazing stories with me, I was looking forward to reading this love story spanning nearly the entire 20th century and based on the life of the author’s grandparents.
The story opens in Sydney, 2005: Flora, newly pregnant and starting her married life in Australia, receives an old suitcase in the mail, left to her by her deceased grandmother Hannah. In it, Hannah has packed Flora’s whole family history: old photos, letters, memorabilia and a journal written in Hannah’s hand, which tell of her and her late husband’s Emil’s lives, their love for each other and the hardships they had to endure due to living through two world wars.
Starting in 1902, the author tells Hannah’s and Emil’s story by offering snapshots from different decades in their lives. Born to a poor working class family in Duisburg, Germany, young Emil is sent off to fight in the trenches at Gallipoli during WW1. Returning from the war in 1918, alive but scarred in mind and body, Emil finds his homeland wrecked by economic crisis and political turmoil. As the national socialist party gains popularity during the early 1930’s, Emil follows in the footsteps of his father and actively protests against the new political power, joining the fight for the rights of the working man. However, with the growing popularity of Hitler’s party, their resistance is short lived – Emil’s father is killed by the brownshirts, and Emil himself becomes a refugee, a stateless person, leaving behind his wife and young son and fleeing to Brussels to escape certain death in his homeland.
In the meantime, Hannah is born to Russian Jewish parents in England, growing up with her father’s deep appreciation of democracy and his support for her education and independence. Politically involved in the labour party from a young age, outspoken and headstrong, Hannah leaves her parents and younger brothers to travel to Paris, Berlin and Brussels, where she holds various positions as translator and writer. In Brussels, working for the trade unions, she meets Emil and falls in love.
Without giving too much away, I was fascinated by the story’s different angle – telling the story of displaced persons before WW2, and their suffering. Castles realistically portrays the political situation in Germany in the 1930’s, and the impossible position opposers to the Nazi regime found themselves in even a decade before the start of WW2. Emil’s heartbreak of losing his homeland as well as his family is reflected in every aspect of his life story, making him a flesh-and-blood character the reader can empathise with.
I was however a little bit disappointed in the character of Hannah, as I found her quite distant and unemotional, despite the first-person narrative of her stories. Despite vivid descriptions of her environment and circumstances, I would have loved to learn more about Hannah’s feelings towards these. What made her fall in love with Emil in the first place? How did she feel on meeting his ex-wife and son? Or on first setting foot in Australia? This was especially true for Emil’s and Hannah’s love story: whilst Hannah tells of her first encounters with Emil, the next story skips three years ahead – what happened to the couple in those three years? I found this period to be such a vital part in understanding their relationship that I was disappointed the author had not shared it with her readers. Because of this, I could not totally emphasise with Hannah’s despair as Emil is interred and sent away – did she even despair? Or did she instead push her feelings aside and show a stiff upper lip, never allowing herself the luxury of such emotions?
My disconnection from Hannah’s feelings contributed to less enjoyment of the novel’s last part, in which the couple marry and start a new family – for my part, I would have been happy had the story finished there, with the lovers being reunited in Australia. However, with the novel being based on real life events, it was interesting to find out how Hannah and Emil fared in their later years.
All in all, I really enjoyed this well-written novel, which opened my mind to a different aspect of WW2 – that of the fate of many political refugees who had to flee their homeland even before the war. Whilst I would have happily given the first part of the book 4 stars, the book lost a bit of steam in its later quarter - my overall rating therefore is 3 ½ stars. This is the first book I have read by Belinda Castles, and I will be sure to look up her other novels.
I am now reading
