Annette Hess

Thank you @harperviabooks and @bookishfirst for the uncorrected proof copy.

The German House is set during the Auschwitz Trials of 1963 and tells the story Eva Bruhns, who is a translator for the trial against several Nazi war criminals during their time at Auschwitz. Eva had a vague awareness of what happened which became an awakening during the trial. She begins having faint recollections and isn’t sure how or why she would be remembering these small details. She learns more about her family’s involvement through the trials.

Eva’s parents and her boyfriend are against her working as a translator for the trial. Her parents, Edith and Ludwig, own a restaurant named The German House and the family live above the restaurant. Her family also consists of her sister, Annegret, who is a nurse in the newborn unit at the local hospital, and Stefan, her younger brother. Her boyfriend, Jürgen, is the son of a wealthy businessman.

One thing I noticed about the book and it took me some to adjust to is that you would be following the story of one character and then seemingly without any separation, you’re following another character. Since this was an uncorrected proof and translated from German, I’m not sure it was fixed before publication.
… (mais)

Like other examples of commercial fiction, The German House (Deutsches Haus) is not great literature, but it is an interesting story, one that tackles the complex question: when is it time to forget and move on? It's a rather clunky combination of a two-generation family saga and a court-room drama, with a side serve of intergenerational trauma, and it features a young female translator who discovers through her accidental work in the rel="nofollow" target="_top">Frankfurt Trials of 1963-65, that her parents have a murky history at Auschwitz. So it raises the dilemma: how do the children of Nazi-era parents deal with the crimes of their parents and grandparents?

There are Australians grappling with murky family history too. Mostly longer ago, but confronting all the same when demands for First Nations truth-telling raise instances of complicity or active involvement in unconscionable behaviour.

Brona reviewed The German House back in 2020, and discussed the concept of collective guilt in her review, raising the issue of younger generations wanting to ignore 'historical legacy' and move on. She concluded that she felt strongly about

... historical precedent, bias, revisionism, lenses, patterns, cycles, who gets to tell the story of history, which bits get left out and what lessons can be learnt, if any. As Hess implies in her story, the contemplation of history is both a bitter and healing exercise.

With Frankfurt's economy booming after postwar reconstruction, twenty-four-year-old Eva Bruhns works as a Polish-German translator, mostly working on contracts and other economic documents, while waiting for her wealthy suitor Jürgen Schoormann to propose. Her doubts are not just about the social disparity between her lower-class family background and his, but also about his old-fashioned attitudes towards the idea of a working wife. Her mother has doubts too, but her father, who runs the 'German House' restaurant is keen for her to be upwardly mobile, and the initial contact between the families seems to go well.

That is, until Eva is hired as a fill-in translator for a Polish witness at the Frankfurt trials. Public opinion is divided as to whether crimes committed in Auschwitz should be pursued so long after the event, but Jürgen's objections are that a working wife would compromise his social position.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/09/16/the-german-house-2018-by-annette-hess-transl...… (mais)

La Casa Alemana
Annette Hess
Publicado: 2018 | 238 páginas
Novela Histórico

La vida de Eva Bruhn gira en torno a La casa alemana, el restaurante tradicional que regentan sus padres y en el que la familia comparte las pequeñas cosas del día a día: desde los entresijos de su trabajo en una agencia de traducción hasta el anhelo de que su novio se decida por fin a pedirle su mano a su padre.Pero en 1963 va a celebrarse en Frankfurt el primer juicio de Auschwitz, y el destino hace que Eva acabe colaborando con la fiscalía como intérprete, a pesar de la oposición de su familia. A medida que traduce los testimonios de los supervivientes, descubre la inmensidad y el horror de lo que sucedió en los campos de concentración y una parte de la historia reciente de la que nadie le ha hablado nunca. ¿Por qué todos insisten en dejarla atrás? ¿Por qué faltan fotografías en el álbum familiar? ¿Es posible vivir igual cuando se atisba la verdad?… (mais)