Daniel Mendelsohn’s meditation on the rise of the Nazis and their impact includes a disturbing story: “One minute we were middle-class people, doing ordinary things…. Then the next minute we were being hunted like animals. Anyone could kill us, you see. You weren’t a person anymore.” (p. 47)
One of the people who fled Europe and the Nazis in the 1930s was Erich Auerbach. He left his German homeland and ended up in Istanbul. There, he spent years working on a book that some critics call a masterpiece: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. I’ve had Mimesis on my shelf for over 40 years. Mendelsohn’s book is motivating me to read it.
Mendelsohn also discusses Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. A lot is packed into this slim book! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PART I: The Lycée Français — 1
PART 2: The Education of Young Girls — 45
PART 3: The Temple — 81
At first I thought that was a picture of Dr. Evil.
Steve, Daniel Mendelsohn could be Dr. Evil’s “good” brother.
We younger Germans still don’t understand it all – though of course there are haters again and not only here (in Hungary right now George Soros is the principal figure to be hated – especially by the government!).
I didn’t talk too much with my parents anout it all but I’m happy to declare they were no Nazis – my father wasn’a member of the NSDAP even though he became an officer. I still have the paper by the French autorities declaring him an “also ran”.
A bit OT:
My mother told me a few stories about her Jewish school friends. She and the girls would exchange their lunch – some Matzen for a sandwich with liverwurst (made from pork …). And on Fridays she’d get some sausage from them – which for her as a Catholic was forbidden.
And then suddenly in early 1938 they all disappeared!
They lived in the neighbouring village of Rexingen which was mainly Jewish, had a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery and large farms.
It was soon found out that one of them had got them to flee the imminent danger – for the clever ones it was obvious that things would get even worse – only some people just couldn’t/wouldn’t believe it that (at least some of …) their friendly Schwab neighbours might turn into monsters.
So they founded a new village in Palestine.
Btw there have been good relations between the old and the new village after the war, some former inhabitants came to visit their former home village – though it probably wasn’t easy for them.
You an find more info here, really interesting:
https://www.ehemalige-synagoge-rexingen.de/en/activities/jewish-families
Wolf, a lot of people disappeared in 1938. The lucky ones fled the upcoming Holocaust. Others were victims of it.
A lot of us hate George Soros, too.
George, you’re not the only one with an unread copy of MIMESIS . Mine has been there for at least 20+ years. Long enough that I can no longer remember where or why I bought it. I just went to look for it and it’s buried too deep to find without an extensive search.
Michael, MIMESIS was considered a classic when I was in college in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of my professors referred to it so of course I bought a copy. Now, I plan to read it after decades of MIMESIS sitting on my shelves.
I am hoping we avoided such a scenario here. But the seeds are planted.
Patti, I find it encouraging that the staff of the EPA is “pushing back” against the Trump political people who want to damage the agency. January 20th can’t get here fast enough!