A letter addressed to the reader accompanied this proof copy of Eleanor Wasserberg’s second novel. In it she advises that if we were to have dinner with her family they would all talk about the Holocaust. Suits me. Send me the invite. I like to talk about the Holocaust. ‘Like’ is not the right word but you know what I mean. It’s because I believe it is vitally important to talk about the Holocaust and to continue talking about the Holocaust. And if you’re unable to do that the next best thing is to read about the Holocaust. Whether it be non-fiction or some of the many novels about the subject that are around today. Why? So that we never forget. So that we might in some small way prevent such a thing ever happening again. So that we might never forget those poor souls who perished,and keep their memories alive.
This book is interesting because firstly, like Kim Sherwood’s Testament it’s based on first-hand testimony. And secondly, possibly more unusually it relates to what I will call ‘pre-Holocaust’. It looks at those days as the awful reality started to dawn upon the Jewish families in Krakow and life as they knew it changed forever. It looks at what one family did to try and deal with the situation. And it shows what happened to them.
I have visited Krakow. It’s a beautiful city. So as I read I recognised some of the places, the Cloth Hall for example and Wawel Castle. Somehow a book endears itself to you all the more for containing the familiar. I remember walking from my hotel, not far from the railway station, right down to the river. Past the sewing machines that immediately made me think of those who might once have worked them. Later in my trip I wanted to go and see Oscar Schindler’s factory which is over the river in what I guess must be the old town mentioned by Janina in the book. On the way there just before you cross the river there is a square. In the square are wooden chairs placed poignantly. They’re empty. It’s called the Jewish Heroes Square and it is a very moving space. The chairs symbolise the tragedy of the Polish Jews, specifically those imprisoned in the ghetto.
However the family in the story don’t feature in the ghetto. Their journey is a different one. I’m not going to divulge details and intricacies of the plot because that would spoil the story for you. But I’ll include the blurb -
‘When Jozef is commissioned to paint a portrait of the younger daughter of Kraków’s grand Oderfeldt family, it is only his desperate need for money that drives him to accept. He has no wish to indulge a pampered child-princess or her haughty, condescending parents – and almost doesn’t notice Alicia’s bookish older sister, Karolina.
But when he is ushered by a servant into their house on Kraków’s fashionable Bernadyńska street in the winter of 1937, he has no inkling of the way his life will become entangled with the Oderfeldts'. Or of the impact that the German invasion will have upon them all.
As Poland is engulfed by war, and Jozef’s painting is caught up in the tides of history, Alicia, Karolina and their parents are forced to flee – their Jewish identity transformed into something dangerous, and their comfortable lives overturned …
Spanning countries and decades The Light at the End of the Day is a heart-breaking novel of exile, survival and how we remember what is lost.’
Actually that sums it up very well. I won’t spoil it by telling you more. What I will tell you is the book is extremely well written. The novel strikes a satisfying balance between presenting us with objective reality yet allowing us to indulge in subjective mood. And this story has its roots in real life. I did some googling and found the painting.
I remember attending a talk by a holocaust survivor, Eva Schloss. She is the stepsister of Anne Frank and she survived Auschwitz. She talked about refugees and emphasised how very very difficult it is for people to decide to leave their homes, their cultures, the place maybe where they were born, where they felt safe, to escape some thing evil in pursuit of them. How you have to be desperate to make that decision to leave. I think that comes across here. That and the will to survive.
I read Foxlowe and was both disturbed and mesmerised by that novel. It was a debut novel. And I can remember wondering what this talented writer would do next. Now I know! It couldn’t be more different from Foxlowe. Which tells me that this is a writer of quality and diversity. Now I await her third novel!
My grateful thanks to Matt Clacher of 4th Estate books for an advance proof.
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