Erich Maria Remarque takes us through A Time to Love and a Time to Die in Nazi Germany

Recently I read an article about the topics you should avoid when speaking to a foreigner, depending on his country of origin. Unsurprisingly, the most popular topic one should never mention in front of a German is World War II. Germans are quite sensitive about Hitler, the concentration camps, and the Jews and they don't like discussing it or even mentioning it. However, this is the single most violent event of the 20th century and I barely know a person who has no or little opinion on it. After all, Bulgaria has spend 500 years under the Turkish yoke, but I still don't mind talking about racial issues and confrontations. Despite this German peculiarity (along with their many many other peculiarities, which I simply don't get) one of the authors who talks most exhaustively about World War II is exactly German. I present you Erich Maria Remarque.

A few weeks back a friend of mine, whose literary opinion I greatly admire, asked me an interesting question: "Is there a single author, whose complete works you have read?" I thought about it for a long time, and although I have read quite a few novels from Dostoyevsky, I cannot actually say I read it all. I don't even believe it is possible to read it all. Then she suggested I read all (or most of what) Erich Maria Remarque has written. I was ashamed to say that I hadn't read anything and I haven't even the slightest idea what, how, and why he writes. She immediately corrected my mistake and gave me quite a few books. The result is that a new era is about to hit Read with Style. Starting from today, I am going to read solely Remarque for the following months. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to bore you or to present you with only one side of literature. I believe my blog has been quite diverse so far, so I feel it is time for me to focus on a particular subject, or on a particular author. I start with A Time to Love and a Time to Die, not one of Remarque's most famous novels but certainly a very good first impression for the German-born author.

War is heroic, war is noble, war is protecting the superior Arian race. At least that is what gestapo was trying to promote to the common people during World War II and especially close to Germany's defeat. It is difficult (or almost) impossible to believe so when you are bombarded almost every other day, when you lose your house and your family, when your son/husband/father is fighting and dying on the front. Set through the eyes of a simple soldier, Ernst Graeber, the novel explores the cruelty of the war, the hypocrisy of the leaders, and the disillusionment of the people. Soldiers have no other choice but to go and fight for the cause. No one asks them whether they want to or whether they believe in it. No one gives them a choice. Some of them are born and raised under the Nazi rule. They believe in the postulates of the Party, they believe of the superiority of the Arian race, and they foolishly obey any order given to them. They are cruel, stupid, and ignorant. Yet they drive the Party and they cherish its development. Others, like Graeber, they think. They analyze what they have been told, they compare to the reality on the front and they realize the fatuity of the war, the hopelessness of the situation, and the unbelievable cruelty of the Party officials. Graeber attempts to stay patriotic even when he returns for a deserved leave after two years spend on the front. However, when he sees the damages the war has done to his closest people, when he falls in love with a girl, whose father suffers in a concentration camp, when he meets his old teacher hiding or his friends dying in the hospitals, he begins to question the purpose of it all.

There is a time to die but there is also a time to love. Unfortunately, soldiers are not given that choice. They are not given a choice at all. The hardest thing is to realize that what you are doing is cruel, purposeless, and doomed but yet to continue doing it because you have no other choice. The hardest thing is to know that you only have a couple of weeks to fall in love, to get married, to experience this love, and to separate. The hardest thing is to be completely unaware of the state of your parents and relatives. The hardest part is seeing your friends die and being unable to help them. The hardest thing is witnessing foolish and ignorant bootlickers, who have memorized Mein Kampf without understanding it, climb easily the stairs of power and influence. The hardest thing is seeing injustice and being absolutely helpless to change it. Yet, this was life for Graeber and for many others like him. War was not fair and it never will be. War doesn't ask you whether it is time to love or to die. War doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. And war doesn't care about what is fair or not. It is just war and it is a time to die.

Needless to repeat myself, my favorite subject is indeed World War II. The previous three novels I reviewed here, Sarah's Key, The Book Thief, and The Diary of Anne Frank focused on the personal sufferings of three children in different Nazi occupied countries. However, Remarque enriched me with a totally different perspective - the sufferings and the inner conflicts of the soldier, the main driver of the war. A driver that sometimes doesn't understand the war, doesn't believe in the war, even hates the war. A soldier that wants to love but it is actually his time to die.

Sarah's Key - Jewish Girl's Sufferings in Nazi France

When my aunt told me "I have read a book that you might like", I was very skeptical. Not to be too full of myself, but my aunt's taste doesn't in anyway resemble my own. There is nothing wrong with reading sugarcoated love stories or predictable crime novels but I have always felt this type of literature is losing my time. With the abundance of great books to read, I just don't see the point of reading these, even with the idea of relaxing. Emotional and sensitive as I am, I don't use novels or movies to escape these emotions and feelings. Instead, I take even more emotions from the literature I read that I can bear. However, my aunt insisted that I would simply love Sarah's Key and that it even made HER cry. My aunt not only read a serious novel but she was even moved by it. In addition, she told me that it was about Jews, which is one of my favorite topics, so I went for it.

To be honest, I expected a little bit more from Tatiana De Rosnay's Sarah's Key. The idea is good - a little Jewish girl, taken together with her family by the French police and moved to a stadium, where the conditions are terrible. The Jews are left without food, shelter, water, and toilet waiting to be transferred to one of the hundreds concentration camps, where most of them find their death. Sarah, wanting to protect her little brother, leaves him in the secret wardrobe of their apartment, promising to return and unlock him. Hence, Sarah's key. Unfortunately, Nazi occupied France doesn't offer this sense of security and planning. The little girl is unable to save her brother or her family; a disastrous guilt that hunts her down all of her life, leaving her scared and unable to feel happy.

This one of the story lines. The other one, 60 years after the tragic events at the Parisian stadium, involves a 45-old American journalist living in France. Julia receives the task of writing an article about these Jews and starts digging in the story of Sarah and of the other children. Dealing with problems with her beautiful but unfaithful husband, her pretentious French family-in-law, her unfortunate pregnancy, and her obsession with the little girl, Julia discovers a secret about her husband's family that has been hidden for more than 60 years. The stories of two women from totally different generations and time periods entangles in a novel about loyalty, love, compassion, suffering, and forgiveness.

Even though the story is indeed tragic and emotional, I didn't cry. I just couldn't feel it from Rosnay. The plot has the potential of becoming something truly incredible and touching but at times I felt as if the author herself was not feeling it. The story, of course is made up; only the background events are real. Still, Rosnay's fiction is not enough to grasp the brutality and terror of separating a family, the pain and suffering of leaving your brother to die, the compulsive feeling of guilt that it was you that survived and not someone else. I felt sad because I kept imagining the events in my own head. But reading about them, I just felt a little touch of sadness and depression. I expected a lot more because the story itself is great. The way it was told by the author - not so much.

I would by far recommend the other two Jewish stories I read this year - The Diary of Anne Frank and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Both are about the sufferings of little girls in Nazi occupied countries. Both present a compelling story of how the most innocent accept and fight the terror inflicted upon them. One has a unfortunate ending, the other one - a more happy one. Even though the story of the little Anne locked in a secret house in Netherlands is very different from Liesel's destiny, told from the perspective of Death itself, both novels are examples of what good literature about this period should look like. Compared with them, Sarah's Key doesn't have the same influence or effect on the reader. Not that you mustn't read it; it is just a bit overrated for what it truly offers.

The Art of Living and Surviving in Nazi Netherlands - Anne Frank and Her Heartbreaking Story

From the countless stories, memories, diaries, academic investigations, secret lists, interviews, and conclusions about the Holocaust in Europe between 1939 and 1945 one diary stands out. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Not merely a recollection of her 2 years in hiding, but a manifesto of strength, life, love, friendship, and constant struggle for development. Translated into more than 40 languages, the story of Anne is one of the most read books in history.


Anne Frank is a normal 13 year old girl. She lives with her parents and her sister in Amsterdam. While reading her first diary entries you would never guess that she lives in one of the most terrible periods in world history. Anne is slightly spoiled, she is taken great care from her parents, she has many friends and admirers, she goes out, laughs, plays, all and all she is being a regular teenage girl. Unti the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands expands enormously and her family is forced to hide in a secret annex of a house. Eight people, among who are Anne and her family, another friendly family, and a dentist spend more than 2 years hidden from the rest of the world in a place, where no one suspects their existence. Helped our by their loyal friends, the eight survivors are forced to live between four walls, to suffer deprivation, and to wait patiently for the end of the war. The Diary of a Young Girl is Anne's recollection of that period. Her numerous diary entries show us the war through the eyes of a young, yet very perceptual and intelligent girl.

Why does Anne's diary stand out among all else? Why is the voice of a girl able to touch us so deeply and to make us experience her story as if we were there. The secret is hidden in Anne's personality. Just 14-years old, Anne realizes the absolute value of her own personality and her unique mind and way of thinking. The girl objectively observes, evaluates, and criticizes her actions and thoughts. Anne proclaims herself and protects the right to be who she is. The young girl is forced to grow up and to form her character alone. Her family doesn't understand her and still accepts her as a small child. The prisoners in the house laugh at her, criticize her for her extra energy, yell at her for her humour and irony, and attempt to change her. However, Anne shows strength and confidence atypical for her young age. She doesn't place her parents on a piedestal. She realizes their faults as both her guardians and as people. When Anne remains alone, with no one to understand the transformation in her mind and soul, she turns up for her diary for support.

As the young girl herself states, the paper is more patient than human beings. Anne self-identifies through writing and sharing to her imaginary friend Kitty. She is looking for someone to understand her the way she is, to hear her thoughts, to accept that she is not a child anymore, but a mature individual able to make his/her own decisions. The diary follows the daily struggles of the eight Jews about food, shelter, and space. Anne observes these quarrels making ingenious conclusions about the characters of her forced housemates. She surprises with her ability to go beyond the outside surface of the people and to see through their actual characters. In that sense, the diary is not only about Jews in Nazi Europe; it is an ode of a growing up girl, who is forced to construct her personality in unnatural conditions.

Yet, the most admiring thing about Anne is her desperate desire to live. She spends more than two years locked in the house but this deprivation doesn't invoke her inertness as a prisoner. Instead, Anne shows up incredible energy and will to experience, to learn, to love, to understand, to write, to think, to love. She enjoys the chores, she regularly studies, she reads, and she even falls in love. This constant movement is Anne's way to suppress fear, to overcome anxiety, and to wait patiently for better times. In essence, the girl's energy is a peculiar struggle with depression and win over death. Through writing Anne manages to understand herself and the people around her better. As she grows, she transforms from the universal " I am alive and that is important" to the unique "I want to be remembered even after I die". The girl didn't even realize how close she was to the truth.

The Diary of a Young Girl is many things. It is a historical proof of one of the most savage periods in human history. It is a psychological auto-portrait of a growing up girl in terrible circumstances. It is also a warning against the biggest evil done from people to people. Politics appears only sometimes in Anne's diary but the treasure of this collection is in Anne's extraordinary desire to live, to embrace the world, to be positive, and to grow. The character of the girl somewhat reminded me of a very young Ayn Rand. She presents herself as an ultimate virtue, she values her thoughts and ideas, she places her happiness and well-being over everything else. Anne doesn't follow someone else's rules (even her parents). She sees herself as able to make her own choices and to construct her own destiny. In that sense, Anne is much more than a little Jewish girl. Anne is what we should be despite of other people's opinions, despite of our problems, despite of the world. Because Anne teaches us one very important lesson - you must follow your own path and find someone who accepts you and loves you the way you really are.

This is the second book about a girl in Nazi Europe that I read in the last months. The first one, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was about little Liesel, who overcame the war difficulties through reading and stealing books. She also had a Jewish friend, whom her family was secretly hiding in their basement. In The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank fights fear and desperation through writing and thinking. Both girls develop their own ways to survive and show us that sometimes children have the answers better then adults.

For more information about Anne, her subsequent capture by the Nazis, and her death in a concentration camp, you can visit the official website: http://www.annefrank.org/.

A Book Thief in Nazi Germany

Books and movies about Nazism, Hitler, World War II, concentration camps, and Jews are amongst my favorites. I am this weird kind of person, whose daily problems are not enough. I need drama when I read, when I watch, everywhere. I love a good old book or movie that makes me cry and shiver. It is a katarsis. People say they need funny and relaxing moments to forget their issues. I am the opposite. I need bigger dramas, huge sufferings, immerse pain to feel I am still alive. That is why The Book Thief by the Australian writer Markus Zusak is my type of literature.

The story is set in a small German town during the Second World War. The protagonist is Liesel Meminger, a 9 year old girl, who meets Death three times. In this novel Death isn't like anything you imagined it to be - Death sees colors, feels compassion, gently takes away the souls, criticizes war, and is obsessed with humans. In fact, Death tells us the story. Yes, you heard right. When the unwanted but inevitable visitor first meets Liesel, the young girl loses her brother. She is sent to live with foster parents in a small German town. The second time Death and Liesel meet an enemy bomber crashes near the place the girl lives. The third time the whole town is bombarded and Liesel is the only one that survives.

What is unusual about Liesel is that she is a thief. A book thief. The little girl finds compassion and enjoyment in stealing books and reading them in the middle of the night with her stepfather. Soon, Liesel starts writing her own story - a touching story about a book thief in Nazi Germany. A story that Death itself finds during her cruises to gather souls and is so impressed with, that it decides to share it. Liesel's life is difficult. Her family is poor, her mother is a communist persecuted by Hitler, her stepmother is strict and her best friend is a Jew hidden in their basement. Max Vanderburg is a Jewish fist-fighter, whom Liesel's father Hans shelters in their home. Max and the girl develop a strong relationship, based on their mutual love for books, reading, and writing. However, Nazi Germany is not a place to be a friend with a Jew. Liesel lives in a difficult world and soon she loses all the people she cared for and loved. This is the story of growing up in a world torn by prejudice, hatred, and bitterness. Liesel survives because of the books she steals. She finds worlds in there, which help her overcome her difficult life. She is young but she opposes the regime she doesn't understand by stealing books supposed to be burned and by helping a Jew. When Death finally comes for Liesel's soul, she is already a grown up woman in Australia. However, her life story is forever captured in her novel.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a different book. Its language is fragmentary and simple. Sometimes the narration is interrupted for clarifications, lists, conclusions, and wisdom. All of which come from Death. The novel is gloomy, depressing, and tragic. Yet even though it is told from the point-of-view of death, it is a story about love, hope, compassion, and help. It brings up all the best virtues in the human beings, which they manifest in times of great crisis. It is a must read novel for all of us, to remember the power of literature, to understand how books become treasures, to feel the great fulfillment that comes from finishing a novel. And it is there to remind us of one of the worst tragedies in world history. And it is there to bring us hope. Even though this hope comes from Death.

Recently I thought a book I wanted to see made into a movie. I thought about my favorite ones, but most of them have already been adapted for the big screen. The Book Thief is a book I want to really see. We can never have enough movies about the Holocaust. Combined with the fact that this book is about the treasury of literature, I strongly hope that soon we will have the chance to watch its adaptation in the cinemas.