The Passenger

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.

No work I've read on the Nazi era has the being-there immediacy of this almost-in-real-time, cinematic narrative, in which you are taken through a desperate, mostly railway tour of Nazi Germany in its barbaric new 'normality', by a fleeing Jewish protagonist who 'passes' for an Aryan. No atrocity is actually witnessed by him, yet feelings of horror, doom, and prophecy saturate every page. Boschwitz wrote the book at 23, from exile, and it is a colossal achievement. If you want to try and put yourself in the shoes of a German Jew after the pogroms of late 1938, this is going to be a real, empathic help. Beautifully written and translated, and easily read too. Please read this book.

Would I have done anything differently? Surely it would have been possible to simply hide or assume another identity? This book records the history of a man who's never had to run and hide in peacetime. He's Jewish but he's also very German. Even when his life depends on it, he is revolted by the thought of breaking rules. I've lived in Germany: they're still like that. Rules are to be followed. A compelling read.

Beginning with Kristallnacht (November 1938), the novel follows the plight of Otto Silbermann, a businessman living through the November pogroms, who is helped to escape arrest by his protestant wife. The novel follows Otto through his emotional shifts as he tries, desperately, to reconnect with his family, his friends and previous associates whilst hiding in plain sight of anyone who might report him to the authorities. He spends days tavelling by train in an effort to get out of the country and many of the scenes are based on actual personal or familial experiences of the author.Although a novel, there are many autobigraphical similarities. The closeness of scenes in the book to the author's real life give the text an edge of nervousness that I, in my blissful and peaceful 21st century existance, can only partially understand. But the growing sense of desperation that Otto experiences is there on every page.As a character, I didn't particularly warm to Otto but then, when under such extreme duress, having lost everything, would any of us behave in a way that would encourage empathy? Probably not. Otto's shifts from absolute despair through to whimsical belief for a bright future in the Germany of 1938 were sometimes hard to read, but the inner workings of his mind were an insight into the daily terror that ordinary people had to face during that time.I found the writing style a little difficult at the outset, but it soon became very clear that the narrative voice employed was the only one that could fit such a story - a unique story that had to be told. I can thoroughly recommend this book as a fascinating view of a terrible time in our recent history.

It seems like everyone who reads this books loves it, and the praise from book reviewers is deafening. Allow me to offer a dissenting view.While the life story of the author is tragic and moving (a Jewish refugee from Germany who eventually lost his life in a U-boat attack), I did not find this book moving or believable.It tells the story of a German Jewish businessman who runs away from his home (and his non-Jewish wife) on the Kristallnacht in 1938 and then races across Germany by train. No one is pursuing him — indeed, no one seems to notice him — and he has no end goal in sight. He just goes from one city to another, back and forth. The one thing he sort-of tries, crossing the border into Belgium, is a non-starter. And that’s the whole story. Nothing else really happens.The central character is unappealing and uninteresting. His obsession about the money he carries with him, and the money he has lost, seems almost like a caricature of how Jews were portrayed by the Nazis. His indifference to the fate of his wife seems to play to that role as well.I was so hoping for a better book …