THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

One of the best novels of the Holocaust, the plot focuses on two stories, the tragedy of the Weiss family, Jews, who struggle to survive the war.  And Erik Dorf, a seemingly mild mannered individual with no criminal history, and no virulent anti-Semitic past who rises in the Party and evolves into a rabid Nazi capable of unspeakable crimes against defenseless Jewish civilians.  The novel offers a broad and realistic scope of the Holocaust covering events in Germany, Poland and Czech.  The novel, well written and personable portrays realistic, dimensional characters.  In the 1970’s, novel was made into a TV movie.

The well assimilated and upper class family of Josef Weiss, a medical doctor and his wife Berta, raised their three children, Karl, Rudi, and Anna in Berlin, Germany.  Rudi’s grandfather fought in WW I, and received medals for his valor.  In 1935, Karl, twenty-two years old, marries Inga Helms, a beautiful, young, blonde, German woman, devoted to him.  Inga’s family does not approve of the marriage.  In 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power and the race laws of 1938 instated, the Weiss family is soon separated and their lives, forever changed.