The List by Martin Fletcher; Thomas Dunne Books; Reprint edition (October 11, 2011)
Having spent most of my adult life with my head in the sand
regarding the Holocaust, I eventually focused on learning what led to this horrible
period and what happened to Jews during the war, but not the time after the war. I occasionally mused on what it must have
been like for those who survived the camps and those who escaped before the war
and worried of the fate of their dear ones.
Fletcher’s The List takes
you into that time. It looks into the
lives of a few Jewish refugees in England and Palestine after the war. Mr.
Fletcher’s novel is based on real events in 1945-46 experienced by people like his
parents, George and Edith Fleischer.
While not their story, the main characters are, fittingly, a couple
named George and Edith Fleischer.
In London, George and Edith experienced culture shock and
joined a rapidly evolving subculture of European Jewish refugees. They lived in agony, worrying for missing
family who disappeared. George maintains
the tear-stained list of their missing family members, suffering as news leads
him to cross out names. Edith’s Cousin
Anna, indelibly damaged by her time in Auschwitz, finds and joins them in
London. Her story in London, but not
Auschwitz, is told.
The List portrays
the everyday challenges and suffering of these strangers in a strange land. Beyond
those, it tells of the threat of an ultimately unsuccessful but terrifying
London movement to send Jewish refugees “home” in order to free space and jobs for returning
soldiers.
The List draws the contrast between these Jews in England and those
in Palestine. The Jewish refugees in
London were trying to blend in, take English names and become English. In Palestine, an ultra-Zionist group employed
extreme violence to force the British to raise or eliminate quotas on Jews immigrating
to Palestine or to force the British to leave Palestine and let the Jews and
Arabs fight it out. The List shows the irrationality
of Britain’s policies in Palestine and the disparity of the response of various
Jewish communities.
I recommend reading The
List to understand Jewish post-war London from the perspective of those refugees
who were fortunate enough to get there. Some portions will be difficult for those who were refugees or their children.
The List recalled a document that my cousin Gerald Stern in
England sent me. It was issued by The
German Jewish Aid Committee in conjunction with The Jewish Board of Deputies to
Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Europe. It brings a stark reality to the book’s
story. Here is the cover:
It’s in English and German and has the following sections:
·
ORGANIZATIONS Useful for our Visitors
·
HOW TO REGISTER with your Local Police
·
The TOLERANCE AND SYMPATHY of Britain and the
British Commonwealth
·
WORK WHICH IS ALLOWED and WORK WHICH IS NOT
ALLOWED
·
BRITISH MONEY – WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
You can read it here
