THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Heinrich Boll was born in Cologne, Germany in 1917.  When a teen, in the early 1930’s, with Hitler’s rise to power, Boll steadfastly refused to join the Hitler Youth.  Conscripted into the Wehrmacht, Boll served in France and Eastern Europe including Russia.  Boll was wounded four times before he was captured by the Americans in 1945. Heinrich Boll became one of the most prolific anti-Nazi authors of his time.  Among other awards, in 1967, Boll was awarded the Georg Buchner Prize and in 1972, Heinrich Boll received the Nobel Prize for Literature.  The author died in West Germany, in 1985.  “The Train Was On Time”, explores the misery and daily life of German combat soldiers on the Eastern Front during WW II.

 

Andreas boards the train in Paris for deployment in Przemsyl, Galicia, Poland.  The twenty-four year old soldier struggles with the premonition that he is going to die, soon, and torments himself in the effort to discern how and where.

Andreas befriends two fellow soldiers who combat their own nightmares.  Andreas refers to Hitler as the divine beast, and wishes he would be assassinated, all the while knowing he would be killed for such thoughts as other soldiers staunchly defend the Fuhrer.  Andreas grieves and prays for the Jews, conscious of their doomed fate.

Upon arrival to Lvov, the capital of Galicia, Andreas meets a prostitute, Olina, a partisan, who works for the anti-fascist movement.  The two decide to escape to the Carpathian Mountains however the war intervenes with their plans.