Postcards to Hitler: A German Jew’s Defiance in a Time of Terror by Bruce Neuberger; New York: Monthly Review Press; ISBN 9781685-900540; (c) 2024; 456 pages; $29.
SAN DIEGO — This is a carefully compiled record of the situation of German Jews between 1907 and 1942, the last year being when the author’s father, Benno Neuberger, was executed for treason on September 18 in Berlin, and his mother, Anna Neuberger, was murdered on September 19 by the Nazi death machine at Treblinka.
All things considered, Benno’s death by guillotine was more dignified. He had a show trial in which he could speak out against the genocide being committed by the Nazi regime. His crime was writing 14 postcards to the Fuehrer, denouncing him as an idiot and mass murderer. Hitler never received the messages; they were intercepted by the Gestapo. Benno did not notice that one postcard bore the imprint of his business, enabling the Gestapo to find its sender. Had it not, Benno might have died the next day with the rest of his family at Treblinka.
What good did Benno’s acts of defiance do? Existentialists believe that no matter how absurd the world has become, one must commit oneself to a purpose. In his son’s account, Benno felt that he and other Germans– especially fellow Jews — could not passively accept their degradation under the Nazi regime. They must protest.
This book is part history with summaries of every repressive measure taken against Jews since Hitler’s ascension to power, quotations from official Nazi records, and the text of letters that his parents sent to their children who had made their way to American safety.
It is also part fiction, in which Benno engages in long conversations, sometimes humorously, over a beer with a fictional friend about German politics and lifestyles. This work of historical fiction analyzes German life from the time preceding World War I through the post war Weimar Republic period into the Holocaust and World War II.
It is quite readable and can serve as a primer on the Shoah for those who have yet to learn about it.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.