The Passenger

fabulous book, almost like an allegory. A quick and very satisfying read

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.

I found this book unremarkable and was an average read.

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.

With persecuted people once again on the move in Europe, The Passenger could hardly be a more fitting novel to have been rediscovered, edited and published. It's 1938 and in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Otto Silbermann finds himself on the run in Nazi Germany, where the persecution of Jews is openly sanctioned by the state. Old friends distance themselves from him, people look the other way, a sense of menace fills his world. Fleeing across the country by train, there is the sense of a net closing, options reducing by the hour, and Silbermann running out of ideas to escape capture and imprisonment, simply for who he is. The book works as a thriller in many respects, with a fast-paced narrative, interesting encounters, and that real sense of things closing down for Silbermann that challenges his sanity on more than one occasion. What makes the book even more realistic is the fact that Silbermann isn't a particularly likeable character, and yet we feel his pain, dread and fear as the story develops. The history of how the book was written, what became of it, and the awful fate that befell Boschwitz only adds to the compelling nature of the contents. Recommended.

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.

The original English version brought out by Hamish Hamilton in 1939 was called The Man Who Took Trains, and the US version published by Harper in 1940 was called The Fugitive. The German title is Der Reisende – the traveller – not Der Passagier/passenger. And yet “Passenger” is a better title for a book about someone who is helplessly compelled to travel, without the freedom implied in a “Traveller”. Kristallnacht and its sequels in Berlin, 7-13 November 1938: attacks on Jews throughout Germany. Nazis, SA, SS everywhere. “Heil Hitler!” wherever you go. Otto Silbermann, a wealthy businessman flees from thugs invading his house and begins a life shuttling around Germany by train, escaping, chasing his money, trying to get out of the country. Like Boschwitz, he is aided by the fact that he is blond and blue-eyed (i.e., “doesn’t look Jewish”) and wealthy. But he is also weak, incompetent, unable to let go of his businessman personality. His paperwork (a passport disfigured with a big red “J” for Jude) and name are a giveaway. All this gives an edge to everything – he is always at risk in a very hostile world. He could be arrested and sent to a concentration camp, although at this point (and as far as Boschwitz ever learned – he drowned when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boot in 1942), "concentration camps" were what Kitchner used them for in the Boer war, to concentrate one sector of society in one location. They weren’t death camps initially. Striking that Fischer Verlag turned down the opportunity to publish the German version some 30 years ago, despite the support of Heinrich Böll – what a modern reader accepts as sad history was evidently too raw for the German public in 1990.

The book gives a very good insight into what life must have been like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany. Having said that, the book is a bit over the place. It lost its way about halfway through. Had the book ended halfway through,as it should have done,then it would have been a five star book. As it stands, it’s really 2/3* but I gave 3*.