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By ALBERT ROSEN
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(Editor's Note: Albert
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English department at
Chadsey High School
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The Holocaust
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Not a Topic for Ever bod to Pursue
and past commander of
the Michigan Depart-
ment of the Jewish War
Veterans.)
Despite its current uni-
versal appeal, the
Holocaust is not grist for
everyone's mill. This is ap-
parent in the three novels
under review: The Climate
of Hell" by Herbert Lieber
man (Pocket Books), "Dita
Saxova" by Arnost Lustig
(Harper and Row), and
Joseph E. Persico's "The
Spiderweb" (Crown Pub-
lishers).
What these books vag-
uely have in common is a
response to the Holocaust.
Beyond that all similarity
ends. The first is a loosely
patterned tale about a re-
negade Israeli agent's pur-
suit in Paraguay of an arch
Nazi criminal Doktor Hel-
mut Gregor Gregori who is
easily recognized as the in-
famous Nazi camp doctor,
Josef Mengele.
Ian Asher, master of
1,000 disguises and a half
dozen, languages, finally
brings his prey to bay in a
steaming equitorial jungle.
This despite Gregori's
phenomenal success in out-
witting and liquidating
scores of extremely clever
Israeli operatives on his
trail including Asher's
lover, Dovia Safid, a beauti-
ful and extremely talented
Israeli agent in her own
right. But justice miscar-
ries.
First, Asher murders
Gregori's visiting son
who he readily admits is
an innocent victim but a
necessary pawn in his
plan to bring home to the
Dokter the significance
of his "scientific
enlightenment" in the
death camps.
Second, the sacrifice of
Holocaust millions as well
as the search for their mur-
derers is reduced to trivial-
ity because Asher views
Dovia's death as cause for
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his personal vendetta with
Gregori. "Just the two of
them alone, adversaries fac-
ing each other across the
dark."
Such sophomoric roman-
ticism is compounded by the
inclusion of a vignette from
the death 'camps in which
Gregori, dapper and erect in
his SS uniform, spits out his
fateful verdicts with
monotonous regularity,
"Links — Recht -- Links —
Recht — Links — Links."
Links, left: immediate
death by gassing. Recht,
right: temporary reprieve at
forced labor. The dirge is
mechanical and devoid of
the essence of empathy
which is vital to a reader on
a subject of such magnitude
and intensity. The verdict
on this book is Links.
ceiving."
scrupulous American col-
Or, as she stood on the onel; becomes despondent
edge of the cliff: "She tossed and kills himself.
her hair out of her eyes and
At the same time
laughed to herself. Things British, American, Rus-
had never turned out the sian and Nazi operative's
way, she wanted them to, feverishly seek the hid-
and she never wanted den plates, each for their
things the• way there were. government's use, but the
Life is not what we want but Nazis particularly to fi-
what we have. She was nance the escape of their
amazed at how simple the own to South America.
answer was when it finally The various subplots in
occurred to her."
the book center about the
This is a thoughtful attempts of each group to
book, a proyoking book, achieve success.
a needed book. Therein
The climax, suspenseful
lies its universality.
and surprising, occurs be-
"The Spiderweb" tells an cause of logical, believable
engrossing tale. Well- incidents and not because of
structured and tersely writ- an impoverished writer's
ten, it delves into the sub- recourse to some deus ex
terranean world of spies, machina. Still this book is
for a casual reader, not for
counter-intelligence,
treachery and murder. The the serious student of the
plot is based upon a startl- Holocaust.
ing fact: " 'Operation Ber-
nhard,' a Nazi attempt to
The object of teaching a
undermine the British child is to enable him to get
economy by flooding the along without his teacher.
world market with counter-
—Elbert Hubbard
feit five-pound' notes" made
from plates created by
Jewish craftsmen in a death
camp in exchange for their
lives.
The only significance to
Bar Mitzva Wedding
the Holocaust per se stems
Stationery Etc.
from Julius Goldhammer,
master engraver, who seeks
JOSEPH P ERSICO
justice after the war by at-
By contrast, "Dita Sax- tempting to expose
o
ova" is a delicate book. Deli- Standartenfuher Wolf
Call Barbara
cate of thought and delicate Kruger, a colonel in the SD,
in expression. Its heroine is murderer of his family, to
a beautiful young girl of 19 the Americans. He futilely
who survives the death contends with an un-
camps only to kill herself
later after a brief fling at
life.
The question of why is
never specifically an-
'91
swered, but a mature
reader can discern a
Priced Sale of Household Contents
growing disenchantment
with life's meaning which
Dita Saxova, along with
Conducted In Your Home
other survivors living in a
girl's hostel in Prague,
find more and more dif-
Estates Liquidated
ficult to resolve. How
each reacts gives fas-
cinating insight into the
human condition.
The beauty of this book
lies in the author's style. In
Liquidators and Appraisers
recounting the rebuilding of
shattered young lives, he re-
368-4044
875-7650
lies heavily upon their in-
trospection. But not at the
expense of reflection or
movement of story.
"Splashes of thought" seem
best to describe the author's
technique. One such exam-
ple occurs at a tryst in a re-
sort hotel between Dita and
WINTERIZE YOUR
a Jewish boy from a
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neighboring hostel.
"Should she tell him she
DONE PROFESSIONALLY
was happy sometimes with-
out knowing why, then un-
BY A PROFESSIONAL COMPANY
happy, not knowing why
either? She thought back to
ALL STATIONS OR ZONES
when she was 13, her first
flow of blood." Or, during
WILL BE BLOWN OUT
their moment of love. "It
was like an underdeveloped
WITH AN AIR COMPRESSOR
photograph emerging out of
the darkness, taking shape
"DON'T" CHALLENGE THE
as you looked at it, reveal-
ing undefined intuitions,
HIGH COST OF REPAIRS!
transforming darkness and
light and making them take
ALSO SPRING TURN-ON
on new meaning. It was a
reward for all those who
surrender what they will
never have again, when giv-
ing becomes the same as
•
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