The Passenger

Only have way through the book, but it is a totally gripping story!

Ran across this title when doing some research for a project. I was VERY intrigued about this, as I am a student of this period of history. This book is extremely thought-provoking, and the author does a great job of putting you in his shoes. The book thoroughly examined the human condition under extreme circumstances.

Chegou rapido e bem embalado . Ainda nao li. Novinho.

fabulous book, almost like an allegory. A quick and very satisfying read

A frantic depiction of a man on the run in Nazi Germany in the immediate aftermath of the Kristallnacht pogrom. For several days in November 1938, the Jewish Otto Silbermann bounces around inside the cage that is Germany, trying in an unfocused way to escape across a border, then gradually giving up and subsiding into a form of hopeless madness. The pinball machine is the German train system -- Berlin to Dortmund, Dortmund to Hamburg, Hamburg to Munich, Munich to Hamburg.... Silbermann looks Aryan and so escapes apprehension for quite a long time. All the time, until it is stolen, he carries the enormous sum with him of RM41,000 in cash, and lives in panicky fear of its theft. This amount is itself the extortionately low price he realised for the sale of his business to his once-trustworthy Aryan partner. The truest thing about this book is the insidious way the Aryan population turns on, ostracises and condemns the Jewish minority: "If it were up to me, I could help you no problem, but...". There are exceptions, who Silbermann encounters as he runs, but he is by then probably too far gone in desperation to stop, listen and evaluate the coded offers of help that are given. Nothing uniquely German about all this; it would probably be true of any population under the heel of a terrorist, murderous regime -- and we all stand warned. The text, unsurprisingly, is a bit dated and the translation in places odd. If I had just received this on plain sheets of paper as a random passage of English, I would still know that it was German in original. Still, a very good book, of which the text was only rediscovered in 2016, written with fierce urgency by an author who was to die at 27. Is this some kind of allegory for Boschwitz's own life? In the end, the tale is bleak, so don't read The Passenger if you're looking for an emotional lift.