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The Emperor of Lies
In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director—and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.
A haunting, profound and challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
A haunting, profound and challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
673 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
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2047 people want to read
About the author
Steve Sem-Sandberg
44 books62 followersSteve Sem-Sandberg is a Swedish journalist, novelist, non-fiction writer and translator. He is the author of
The Emperor of Lies
. Sem-Sandberg divides his time between Vienna and Stockholm.
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February 27, 2019
Rating: I really do not know. Say three stars just to put a value here.
The Publisher Says: In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director—and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.
A haunting, profoundly challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
My Review: "There's no business like Shoah business." It's cynical, it's infuriating, and it's inevitable that this huge, horrific, and richly dramatic story should be exploited in a million different ways. This novel manages, seventy years after the fact, to find a new and interesting, if completely depressing, angle on the oft-told tale: The life and times of Chaim Rumkowski, the Eldest Jew as the Germans called him, who was granted ownership of all the people and property in the Lodz, Poland, ghetto.
The novel shows Rumkowski in a strong and unflattering light, casting some really dark shadows; but it also illuminates what the author presumes to be Rumkowski's inner life, fraught with the ordinary human disappointments and the everyday human hurts of a misfit with an outsized personality. How Rumkowski comes to be the King of the Jews in this horrible little ghetto and what he assents to and dissents from is the meat of the book. The gigantic cast of characters includes all the factual German and Polish overlords of the ghetto that Rumkowski strives against, as well as fictional composite characters meant to offer the author a more efficient and effective means of communicating Rumkowski's complex and unappealing, if completely relatable, character.
The entire span of existence of the Lodz ghetto is covered. It's not something I think a review should try to explain...the subject of Jewish mistreatment and misery took the author over 600 pages to explore even superficially...so I'll leave it at, Rumkowski's life as King was unenviable, bordering on unendurable, and makes for extremely emotionally fraught reading.
This is not a cheery little bagatelle with which one can wile away the heavy hours of the night. This is a "sit down right here and eat your spinach" kind of a read.
I didn't like it one little bit. I am awed by the author's audacity. I am riveted by the technical bravura of the storytelling choices he's made. I cannot speak highly enough of the translator, whose efforts on behalf of the story are heroic in the actual sense of the word: Imagine the saddest, least hopeful story ever conceived by the mind of Man and then tell it in your own language that's faithful to the poetics of another language and another person. Sarah Death, what a dreadful last name she has, has served thee and me in true hero's part by taking this dark and sad and fascinating journey before us, then coming back to tell us all about it. It's a landmark achievement. I wish there was a huge, well-publicized prize for translations, one that would have the impact of the Nobels. Death deserves it.
So how to rate the book...whether to recommend it or not...it's tough to say. I didn't, as mentioned above, like the book at all, because the vast amount of and dreary sameness within Holocaustic literature has worn me thin in the empathy spot. But this is a story that's really, really involving, and the sheer magnitude of the storytelling chutzpah is worthy of praise and commentary.
How about this: The less you know about the Holocaust, the stronger my encouragement that you read this book. If all you've ever done is read The Diary of Anne Frank, then I consider this book essential to your education. For anti-Semites, it's crucial (pun intended) that you read the book.
But it is not at all fun.
The Publisher Says: In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto, in the Polish city of Lódz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director—and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.
A haunting, profoundly challenging novel, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four and a half years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it—and himself—indispensable to the Nazi regime. These compromises would have extraordinary consequences not only for Rumkowski but for everyone living in the ghetto. Drawing on the detailed records of life in Lódz, Steve Sem-Sandberg, in a masterful feat of literary imagination and empathy, captures the full panorama of human resilience and probes deeply into the nature of evil. Through the dramatic narrative, he asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime motivated by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies? How did the inhabitants of the ghetto survive in such extreme circumstances?
A critically acclaimed breakout bestseller in Sweden, The Emperor of Lies introduces a writer of great significance to American readers. The archives detail daily life in the Lodz ghetto, under the reign of Rumkowki, but it takes a writer with Sem-Sandberg’s singular talent to help us understand the truth of this chilling history.
My Review: "There's no business like Shoah business." It's cynical, it's infuriating, and it's inevitable that this huge, horrific, and richly dramatic story should be exploited in a million different ways. This novel manages, seventy years after the fact, to find a new and interesting, if completely depressing, angle on the oft-told tale: The life and times of Chaim Rumkowski, the Eldest Jew as the Germans called him, who was granted ownership of all the people and property in the Lodz, Poland, ghetto.
The novel shows Rumkowski in a strong and unflattering light, casting some really dark shadows; but it also illuminates what the author presumes to be Rumkowski's inner life, fraught with the ordinary human disappointments and the everyday human hurts of a misfit with an outsized personality. How Rumkowski comes to be the King of the Jews in this horrible little ghetto and what he assents to and dissents from is the meat of the book. The gigantic cast of characters includes all the factual German and Polish overlords of the ghetto that Rumkowski strives against, as well as fictional composite characters meant to offer the author a more efficient and effective means of communicating Rumkowski's complex and unappealing, if completely relatable, character.
The entire span of existence of the Lodz ghetto is covered. It's not something I think a review should try to explain...the subject of Jewish mistreatment and misery took the author over 600 pages to explore even superficially...so I'll leave it at, Rumkowski's life as King was unenviable, bordering on unendurable, and makes for extremely emotionally fraught reading.
This is not a cheery little bagatelle with which one can wile away the heavy hours of the night. This is a "sit down right here and eat your spinach" kind of a read.
I didn't like it one little bit. I am awed by the author's audacity. I am riveted by the technical bravura of the storytelling choices he's made. I cannot speak highly enough of the translator, whose efforts on behalf of the story are heroic in the actual sense of the word: Imagine the saddest, least hopeful story ever conceived by the mind of Man and then tell it in your own language that's faithful to the poetics of another language and another person. Sarah Death, what a dreadful last name she has, has served thee and me in true hero's part by taking this dark and sad and fascinating journey before us, then coming back to tell us all about it. It's a landmark achievement. I wish there was a huge, well-publicized prize for translations, one that would have the impact of the Nobels. Death deserves it.
So how to rate the book...whether to recommend it or not...it's tough to say. I didn't, as mentioned above, like the book at all, because the vast amount of and dreary sameness within Holocaustic literature has worn me thin in the empathy spot. But this is a story that's really, really involving, and the sheer magnitude of the storytelling chutzpah is worthy of praise and commentary.
How about this: The less you know about the Holocaust, the stronger my encouragement that you read this book. If all you've ever done is read The Diary of Anne Frank, then I consider this book essential to your education. For anti-Semites, it's crucial (pun intended) that you read the book.
But it is not at all fun.
June 26, 2012
The Emperor is Naked
Some books puzzle me, the lavish praise they attract puzzles, verbal excesses that seem to set the world on one side and me on the other. I feel like the little girl who wants to cry out please, look; the emperor is naked!
It was a mood that came across me when I read The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell’s tome-like novel set in the Second World War. One hysterical commendation placed on the dust jacket by the publisher (naturally) compared it to War and Peace. It’s complete rubbish, of course. Tolstoy’s novel is epic, stunning in its grandeur. Littell’s book, for all it’s length, is, well, little.
Let me guide you through another big little book. It’s The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg, a Scandinavian author who apparently won a Scandinavian prize for his literary efforts. Like The Kindly Ones it’s set in the Second World War, in the ghetto of Lodz to be exact, a hell in hell, a malevolent creation of one of the most malevolent periods in human history.
We are here in the realm of Holocaust literature, a realm that one should only enter, if enter at all, with care, insight and understanding. The Emperor of Lies has none of these qualities. As a history it is earnest but incomplete. As a novel it veers between sympathy at best and voyeurism at worst. As a work of literature it struggles hard even to be second rate.
The Emperor of the title is Chaim Rumkowski, Lodz’s ‘Eldest of the Jews’, not a fiction but a real historical personage, the man who became a sort of ghetto dictator; a man who became one of the most controversial figures in Holocaust history. I’ve come across him before. I came across him in the Dairy of Dawid Sierakowiak, a teenager who lived, hoped, despaired, suffered and died in the Lodz Ghetto. Of Rumkovski and his circle he wrote;
Lunatics, perverts, and criminals like Rumkowski rule over us and determine our food allocations, work and health. No wonder the Germans don’t want to interfere in ghetto matters: the Jews will kill one another perfectly well, and, in the meantime, they will also squeeze maximum production out of one another.
These few words sum up life in the Lodz Ghetto with simple precision. This is a truth that tells you far more than Sem-Sandberg’s fact-fiction. Actually fiction and fact flow in The Emperor of Lies like oil and water. They do not blend. At some points the author’s narrative breaks down altogether and the history, through documents, is simply allowed to speak for itself.
This, for me, raises the biggest question of all - is it possible or, indeed, desirable to transform this kind of history into fiction? Of course it has been done, and done admirably, by others. I’m thinking specifically of This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, a collection of short stories by the Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski. But Borowski was there, he was in Auschwitz; his tales are based on experience. He had the right to speak, to filter the horror through imagination. Otherwise it is a case of leave well alone, unless one has extraordinary levels of empathy. Here something Elie Wiesel, another Holocaust survivor, said comes to mind – “a novel about Treblinka is either not a novel or not about Treblinka.”
What is The Emperor of Lies about exactly? Certainly not about the 'Emperor' himself, who remains curiously elusive, a wholly insubstantial figure. This is arguably the greatest fault of all, a missed opportunity to give Rumkowski real imaginative substance. But characterisation is not the author’s strongpoint, rather a major failing in a novelist. All life is here but all life is lost. The panorama is sweeping enough, but it sweeps up underdeveloped characters in its path, manikins who speak in an unconvincing and clunking dialogue.
There are also gratuitous touches of Gothic horror, wholly out of place in the midst of real horror, passages of lurid prose, almost pornographic in detail. There is one character, a criminal denizen of the Ghetto, a quite monstrous caricature who only goes by the name of ‘the Belly’. His eyes are torn out by one of the Ghetto policemen using a hook, an occasion for the most lurid verbal excess;
As the blood flowed, the gouged out eye dangled on its string like an egg coated in oily brownish membrane.
At this point I could feel myself being overtaken by a mood of disgust, a feeling that came and went as I moved steadily towards the end. I wish I could say there is something to redeem The Emperor of Lies, even if only the author’s attempt to create a sympathetic understanding of the suffering of the Jews of Lodz, but I simply can’t; all that is positive is overwhelmed by a lie within a lie, by a lack of real empathy. It’s all very well to chronicle the everyday horrors of Lodz, but to add fictional horrors of one’s own really is a step far too far.
It is possible to reconstruct aspects of the Holocaust through imagination. Vasily Grossman did in fiction and fact; he did it with consummate skill in Life and Fate and The Hell of Treblinka. Sem-Sandberg has neither the sweep nor the skill. In so many ways The Emperor of Lies is an extraordinary naïve book, one that makes it patently evident that the subject has defied the author. He wanders fitfully, a bewildered and uncomprehending guide. At points his incoherence is palpable; his narrative a structure that has no structure.
This is not a good novel and it is not a good history. Dawid Sierakowiak will give you a better understanding of Lodz in one hundred pages than Sem-Sandberg does in six. For, you see, the former’s little book is big, just as the latter’s big book is little. The Emperor of Lies is a pretentious, unhappy book. Oh, never mind that. Just pop over to AmazonUK. There you will find superlatives aplenty (War and Peace, blah de blah.) But for me the Emperor really is naked.
Some books puzzle me, the lavish praise they attract puzzles, verbal excesses that seem to set the world on one side and me on the other. I feel like the little girl who wants to cry out please, look; the emperor is naked!
It was a mood that came across me when I read The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell’s tome-like novel set in the Second World War. One hysterical commendation placed on the dust jacket by the publisher (naturally) compared it to War and Peace. It’s complete rubbish, of course. Tolstoy’s novel is epic, stunning in its grandeur. Littell’s book, for all it’s length, is, well, little.
Let me guide you through another big little book. It’s The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg, a Scandinavian author who apparently won a Scandinavian prize for his literary efforts. Like The Kindly Ones it’s set in the Second World War, in the ghetto of Lodz to be exact, a hell in hell, a malevolent creation of one of the most malevolent periods in human history.
We are here in the realm of Holocaust literature, a realm that one should only enter, if enter at all, with care, insight and understanding. The Emperor of Lies has none of these qualities. As a history it is earnest but incomplete. As a novel it veers between sympathy at best and voyeurism at worst. As a work of literature it struggles hard even to be second rate.
The Emperor of the title is Chaim Rumkowski, Lodz’s ‘Eldest of the Jews’, not a fiction but a real historical personage, the man who became a sort of ghetto dictator; a man who became one of the most controversial figures in Holocaust history. I’ve come across him before. I came across him in the Dairy of Dawid Sierakowiak, a teenager who lived, hoped, despaired, suffered and died in the Lodz Ghetto. Of Rumkovski and his circle he wrote;
Lunatics, perverts, and criminals like Rumkowski rule over us and determine our food allocations, work and health. No wonder the Germans don’t want to interfere in ghetto matters: the Jews will kill one another perfectly well, and, in the meantime, they will also squeeze maximum production out of one another.
These few words sum up life in the Lodz Ghetto with simple precision. This is a truth that tells you far more than Sem-Sandberg’s fact-fiction. Actually fiction and fact flow in The Emperor of Lies like oil and water. They do not blend. At some points the author’s narrative breaks down altogether and the history, through documents, is simply allowed to speak for itself.
This, for me, raises the biggest question of all - is it possible or, indeed, desirable to transform this kind of history into fiction? Of course it has been done, and done admirably, by others. I’m thinking specifically of This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, a collection of short stories by the Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski. But Borowski was there, he was in Auschwitz; his tales are based on experience. He had the right to speak, to filter the horror through imagination. Otherwise it is a case of leave well alone, unless one has extraordinary levels of empathy. Here something Elie Wiesel, another Holocaust survivor, said comes to mind – “a novel about Treblinka is either not a novel or not about Treblinka.”
What is The Emperor of Lies about exactly? Certainly not about the 'Emperor' himself, who remains curiously elusive, a wholly insubstantial figure. This is arguably the greatest fault of all, a missed opportunity to give Rumkowski real imaginative substance. But characterisation is not the author’s strongpoint, rather a major failing in a novelist. All life is here but all life is lost. The panorama is sweeping enough, but it sweeps up underdeveloped characters in its path, manikins who speak in an unconvincing and clunking dialogue.
There are also gratuitous touches of Gothic horror, wholly out of place in the midst of real horror, passages of lurid prose, almost pornographic in detail. There is one character, a criminal denizen of the Ghetto, a quite monstrous caricature who only goes by the name of ‘the Belly’. His eyes are torn out by one of the Ghetto policemen using a hook, an occasion for the most lurid verbal excess;
As the blood flowed, the gouged out eye dangled on its string like an egg coated in oily brownish membrane.
At this point I could feel myself being overtaken by a mood of disgust, a feeling that came and went as I moved steadily towards the end. I wish I could say there is something to redeem The Emperor of Lies, even if only the author’s attempt to create a sympathetic understanding of the suffering of the Jews of Lodz, but I simply can’t; all that is positive is overwhelmed by a lie within a lie, by a lack of real empathy. It’s all very well to chronicle the everyday horrors of Lodz, but to add fictional horrors of one’s own really is a step far too far.
It is possible to reconstruct aspects of the Holocaust through imagination. Vasily Grossman did in fiction and fact; he did it with consummate skill in Life and Fate and The Hell of Treblinka. Sem-Sandberg has neither the sweep nor the skill. In so many ways The Emperor of Lies is an extraordinary naïve book, one that makes it patently evident that the subject has defied the author. He wanders fitfully, a bewildered and uncomprehending guide. At points his incoherence is palpable; his narrative a structure that has no structure.
This is not a good novel and it is not a good history. Dawid Sierakowiak will give you a better understanding of Lodz in one hundred pages than Sem-Sandberg does in six. For, you see, the former’s little book is big, just as the latter’s big book is little. The Emperor of Lies is a pretentious, unhappy book. Oh, never mind that. Just pop over to AmazonUK. There you will find superlatives aplenty (War and Peace, blah de blah.) But for me the Emperor really is naked.
September 14, 2017
Ένα πραγματικά πολύ δύσκολο βιβλίο. Όχι τόσο γιατί νοηματικά έκρυβε κάποια τεχνική δυσκολία αλλά ήταν ένα αρκετά βαρύ και περίπλοκο βιβλίο και αρκετές φορές φλέρταρα με την ιδέα να το εγκαταλείψω. Το ξεκίνησα με πολύ όρεξη και ενδιαφέρον δεδομένης της θεματικής του που γενικά με ελκύει πάντα να διαβάζω σε βιβλία και από μία οπτική γωνία που εγώ προσωπικά δεν είχε τύχει να διαβάσω τόσο στο παρελθόν και με τις γνώσεις μου να ναι σχετικά περιορισμένες οπότε εξού και το ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον μου. Γιατί όμως αυτό χάθηκε στην πορεία? Χμ υποθέτω ότι ο πιο σοβαρός λόγος ήταν μάλλον ότι περίμενα να διαβάσω κάτι διαφορετικό, το είχα φτιάξει κάπως διαφορετικά στο μυαλό μου και δε μου προσέφερε απαντήσεις στα ερωτήματα που είχα θέσει εκ των προτέρων στον εαυτό μου και περίμενα ότι θα απαντηθούν κατά τη διάρκεια της ανάγνωσης. Καλώς ή κακώς για το Ολοκαύτωμα έχουν γραφτεί αρκετά βιβλία και υποθέτω θα συνεχίσουν να γράφονται και πραγματικά βρήκα έξυπνη την ιδέα να γίνουμε μάρτυρες της ιστορίας από την πλευρά των Εβραίων αυτή τη φορά απλά δεν είμαι πολύ σίγουρη αν μπορεί κάποιος να μιλήσει για ένα τέτοιου είδους γεγονός στηριζόμενος απλά σε έρευνα χωρίς δηλαδή να έχει ζήσει αυτή την εμπειρία. Κανείς δε μπορεί να αμφισβητήσει το μέγεθος της έρευνας του συγγραφέα απλά θεωρώ ότι σε τόσες σελίδες δεν κατάφερε σε μένα τουλάχιστον να μου μιλήσει γι αυτό που περίμενα ότι θα διαβάσω και θεωρώ ότι μου δημιούργησε περισσότερα ερωτηματικά από αυτά που είχα ήδη πριν ξεκινήσω την ανάγνωση του. Πραγματικά θεωρώ ότι δεν είμαι η κατάλληλη να κρίνω αυτό το βιβλίο δεν είμαι τόσο βαθιά γνώστρια της ιστορίας στο βαθμό που θα ήθελα το μόνο που μπορώ να πω είναι σαν αναγνώστρια και τίποτα παραπάνω μου άφησε ένα αίσθημα ανικανοποίητου. Με άφησε περισσότερο μπερδεμένη και κουρασμένη από την προσπάθεια να το διαβάσω μέχρι τέλους παρά κάτι άλλο εξου και η χαμηλή μου βαθμολογία σε αυτό. Ιστορικά δε μπορώ να είμαι 100% σίγουρη ότι αυτά που διάβασα είναι ως έχουν κρίνω και βαθμολογώ καθαρά με βάση τι μου προσέφερε αναγνωστικά.
August 18, 2023
A Szörnnyel nem szabad alkudozni. A Szörny a kompromisszum szón nem azt érti, amit te. Ő azt érti alatta, hogy eszközévé tesz - megosztja veled a felelősséget a Gonoszságért, amit elkövetni készül. Lehet, azt hiszed, te csak a saját közösségedet akarod megmenteni a Gonosztól. De a vége az lesz, hogy a Gonosz átitat téged is, és a közösséget is.
Végtelenül fájdalmas szöveg, nem volt jó olvasni. Pedig Sem-Sandberg stílusa néhol Singer pazar elbeszéléseit idézte meg, amelyek a zsidó anekdotakincsből merítenek. Csakhogy amíg Singer színháza a stetl világa, egy azóta eltűnt, de mégis eleven, emberi világ, addig ezek a történetek lázálomszerű térben bonyolódnak. Egy olyan létezésben, ahol kín és a szenvedés csukaszürke egyenruhában várakozik ránk minden sarkon, és ettől az anekdoták olyanok lesznek, mint önmaguk eltorzult, rémisztő tükörképei. Hisz a łódźi gettóban vagyunk, ahová az akkurátus nácik bezsúfoltak 160.000 zsidót, hogy egyék meg egymást. Ennél rettenetesebb helyet elképzelni is nehéz - annyiban még a haláltáborokra is rákontráz, hogy azokban legalább világos a helyzet, itt viszont lehet hitegetni magunkat, és mivel hitegetjük magunkat, a földet érés is fájdalmasabb. A legnagyobb hitegető pedig a gettó vezetésével megbízott Rumkowski, az Elnök, aki megkísérel a Pokol eme előszobájából mintagazdaságot faragni, remélve, hogy megőrzi a jószomszédi viszony illúzióját a németekkel, ha kielégíti minden igényüket.
Ugyanakkor mégsem az van, hogy Rumkowski egy gyarló ember, akivel együtt lehet érezni. Nem arról van szó, hogy megoldhatatlan erkölcsi kérdésekkel kerül szembe, amelyekben megpróbálja a kisebbik rosszat választani. Nem, Rumkowski maga is egy Szörny, akinek nem azért lesz piszkos a lelke, mert pozíciója szükségszerűen piszokkal jár - hanem a piszkos lelke tette lehetővé, hogy Elnökké váljon. Amikor elfogadja (és minden áron meg is akarja tartani) a Zsidó Tanács vezetői posztját, az nem valamiféle önzetlenség, hanem a hatalomvágy kiélése. Fejedelem akar lenni, annak minden hozadékával együtt. Persze fejedelemsége hajszálon függ, ki van szolgáltatva a náci uraknak, de mégiscsak hatalom, és saját kiszolgáltatottságát enyhíti, ha mások meg neki vannak kiszolgáltatva. Mindent megtesz, amit parancsolnak neki, mert tudja, csak így őrizheti meg a közösséget - nem mintha érdekelné bárki más magán kívül, csak ugye közösség nélkül hatalom sincs. És észre sem veszi (mert nem akarja észrevenni), hogy egy lesz a nácikkal a Gonoszságban. Pech, hogy ez sem menti meg - szemükben ugyanúgy zsidó marad, és pontosan oda küldik, ha eljön az ideje, mint hitsorsosait, akiket elárult.
Így belegondolva ez a második dolog, amiért nem volt jó olvasni ezt a könyvet: mert alig van kivel azonosulni. Hisz nem csak Rumkowski aljasodik le, de a többiek is rendszerint elbuknak - hacsak nem akadályozza meg őket ebben korai haláluk. Mert Sem-Sandberg számára az áldozatiság nem a tisztaság szinonimája, hanem olyan lét, ami óhatatlanul a legrosszabbat hozza ki belőlünk.
Aztán van még egy dolog, amiért nem volt jó olvasni. Mégpedig a szerzői kérlelhetetlenség. Sem-Sandberg nem rak a regénybe csendes, nyugodt zugokat, ahol az olvasó megszusszanhat. Csak vezet végig megalkuvás nélkül le a lejtőn, a szakadékba. Hisz ugye azt jól tudjuk, mi lett a gettó vége, tudjuk, nincs happy end, csak felfoghatatlan borzalmak repetitív ismétlődése egészen a keserű végig*. Ez meg ugye nem egy klasszikus irodalmi ív, hanem maga a leépülés. És senki sem szeret premier plánban végignézni egy leépülést. Nem csoda, ha nem szívesen veszi elő újra a könyvet az olvasó, ha egyszer lerakta. Nem csoda, ha alig várja, hogy vége legyen.
Szóval van itt három erős érv, hogy miért nem jó olvasni. És mégis érdemes olvasni. Mert rohadtul így volt. Mert rohadtul ezt tette ember az emberrel. És az ilyen könyvek emlékeztetnek minket arra, hogy mit kell elkerülnünk. Mert ha már benne vagyunk - akkor késő. Akkor már csak rossz döntések vannak.
* Sem-Sandberg egyik eszköze, hogy a szövegbe dokumentumokat illeszt be, amelyek lépten-nyomon figyelmeztetnek bennünket, hogy ez nem fikció, hanem történelem. Ezzel pedig voltaképpen megfosztja az olvasót annak esélyétől, hogy ezt az egész borzalmat mintegy eltartsa magától, azzal áltatva magát, hogy csak egy pervertált fantáziát lát működés közben.
Végtelenül fájdalmas szöveg, nem volt jó olvasni. Pedig Sem-Sandberg stílusa néhol Singer pazar elbeszéléseit idézte meg, amelyek a zsidó anekdotakincsből merítenek. Csakhogy amíg Singer színháza a stetl világa, egy azóta eltűnt, de mégis eleven, emberi világ, addig ezek a történetek lázálomszerű térben bonyolódnak. Egy olyan létezésben, ahol kín és a szenvedés csukaszürke egyenruhában várakozik ránk minden sarkon, és ettől az anekdoták olyanok lesznek, mint önmaguk eltorzult, rémisztő tükörképei. Hisz a łódźi gettóban vagyunk, ahová az akkurátus nácik bezsúfoltak 160.000 zsidót, hogy egyék meg egymást. Ennél rettenetesebb helyet elképzelni is nehéz - annyiban még a haláltáborokra is rákontráz, hogy azokban legalább világos a helyzet, itt viszont lehet hitegetni magunkat, és mivel hitegetjük magunkat, a földet érés is fájdalmasabb. A legnagyobb hitegető pedig a gettó vezetésével megbízott Rumkowski, az Elnök, aki megkísérel a Pokol eme előszobájából mintagazdaságot faragni, remélve, hogy megőrzi a jószomszédi viszony illúzióját a németekkel, ha kielégíti minden igényüket.
Ugyanakkor mégsem az van, hogy Rumkowski egy gyarló ember, akivel együtt lehet érezni. Nem arról van szó, hogy megoldhatatlan erkölcsi kérdésekkel kerül szembe, amelyekben megpróbálja a kisebbik rosszat választani. Nem, Rumkowski maga is egy Szörny, akinek nem azért lesz piszkos a lelke, mert pozíciója szükségszerűen piszokkal jár - hanem a piszkos lelke tette lehetővé, hogy Elnökké váljon. Amikor elfogadja (és minden áron meg is akarja tartani) a Zsidó Tanács vezetői posztját, az nem valamiféle önzetlenség, hanem a hatalomvágy kiélése. Fejedelem akar lenni, annak minden hozadékával együtt. Persze fejedelemsége hajszálon függ, ki van szolgáltatva a náci uraknak, de mégiscsak hatalom, és saját kiszolgáltatottságát enyhíti, ha mások meg neki vannak kiszolgáltatva. Mindent megtesz, amit parancsolnak neki, mert tudja, csak így őrizheti meg a közösséget - nem mintha érdekelné bárki más magán kívül, csak ugye közösség nélkül hatalom sincs. És észre sem veszi (mert nem akarja észrevenni), hogy egy lesz a nácikkal a Gonoszságban. Pech, hogy ez sem menti meg - szemükben ugyanúgy zsidó marad, és pontosan oda küldik, ha eljön az ideje, mint hitsorsosait, akiket elárult.
Így belegondolva ez a második dolog, amiért nem volt jó olvasni ezt a könyvet: mert alig van kivel azonosulni. Hisz nem csak Rumkowski aljasodik le, de a többiek is rendszerint elbuknak - hacsak nem akadályozza meg őket ebben korai haláluk. Mert Sem-Sandberg számára az áldozatiság nem a tisztaság szinonimája, hanem olyan lét, ami óhatatlanul a legrosszabbat hozza ki belőlünk.
Aztán van még egy dolog, amiért nem volt jó olvasni. Mégpedig a szerzői kérlelhetetlenség. Sem-Sandberg nem rak a regénybe csendes, nyugodt zugokat, ahol az olvasó megszusszanhat. Csak vezet végig megalkuvás nélkül le a lejtőn, a szakadékba. Hisz ugye azt jól tudjuk, mi lett a gettó vége, tudjuk, nincs happy end, csak felfoghatatlan borzalmak repetitív ismétlődése egészen a keserű végig*. Ez meg ugye nem egy klasszikus irodalmi ív, hanem maga a leépülés. És senki sem szeret premier plánban végignézni egy leépülést. Nem csoda, ha nem szívesen veszi elő újra a könyvet az olvasó, ha egyszer lerakta. Nem csoda, ha alig várja, hogy vége legyen.
Szóval van itt három erős érv, hogy miért nem jó olvasni. És mégis érdemes olvasni. Mert rohadtul így volt. Mert rohadtul ezt tette ember az emberrel. És az ilyen könyvek emlékeztetnek minket arra, hogy mit kell elkerülnünk. Mert ha már benne vagyunk - akkor késő. Akkor már csak rossz döntések vannak.
* Sem-Sandberg egyik eszköze, hogy a szövegbe dokumentumokat illeszt be, amelyek lépten-nyomon figyelmeztetnek bennünket, hogy ez nem fikció, hanem történelem. Ezzel pedig voltaképpen megfosztja az olvasót annak esélyétől, hogy ezt az egész borzalmat mintegy eltartsa magától, azzal áltatva magát, hogy csak egy pervertált fantáziát lát működés közben.
Read
December 12, 2019DNF. Nžn, ar kad "Obuolio" vertimas, ar šiaip nekabina, nors Tu ką.
April 9, 2012
Does the world really need another Holocaust novel? Not according to historian Simon Schama, who said, in a scathing review in the Financial Times, that 'The Emperor Of Lies' is 'all fugged up with the kind of "fine writing" that succeeds only in drawing attention to the emotional and moral void at its centre.'
The literary world is, of course (as Schama readily accepts) hardly placed to issue any kind of moratorium on Holocaust literature, and for all those who could not begin to contemplate wading through a standard-sized book on the subject, let alone 'The Emperor of Lies', which comes in at a gruelling 662 pages, there are others who maintain these kinds of historical testimonies play a crucial role in ensuring modern-day society is not allowed to forget the horrors of the past.
Certainly, 'The Emperor of Lies' deserves to stand apart from many Holocaust novels because it strays from its subject's conventional territory and bravely focuses on the life of Chaim Rumkowski, the self-styled 'Eldest of the Jews', whose dictatorial rule over the Lodz ghetto made him one of the War's most controversial figures.
Under Rumkowski's rule, the ghetto was turned into a vast sweat-shop, churning out extraordinary quantities of goods requested by German forces in exchange for food supplies: it was Rumkowski's apparent belief that if he could make the Lodz ghetto so productive as to become an inexpendable part of the Nazi war effort, he could thus save its inhabitants from the fate visited upon others.
If it sounds a preposterous notion, it is worth noting that the Lodz ghetto survived much longer than any of the other ghettos in Poland; long after, for example, Warsaw's inhabitants had been sent to the death camps. As Sem-Sandberg posits in his afterword, had the War ended six months earlier, as it might very well have done, Rumkowski could have emerged an undisputed hero.
It didn't, and he didn't. Instead, Rumkowski's place in history is defined more by his megalomaniacal qualities, and his almost pathological obsession which led him to expel fellow Jews from the ghetto (and thus almost certainly to their deaths) for the slighest indiscretions, and to acquiesce to Nazi demands that all those of non-working age - the elderly and all those under ten - also be deported.
For the most part, Sem-Sandberg succeeds in balancing the contraditions and inconsistencies within the novel's pivotal character, imbueing if not him, then certainly his predicament, with sufficient sympathy to force the reader to address difficult questions of whether the end, in the unlikely event that it had indeed been different, might have justified his means.
In this respect, you could comfortably go so far as to suggest 'The Emperor of Lies' is the most technically proficient book on this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist.
It is badly let down, however, by one particular plot strand, involving Rumkowski's adoption of a son, Staszek, who he plucks from the deportation lines. More pertinently, it the nature of Rumkowski's relationship with him - which is explicitly paedophilic - which causes concern. The author admits in his afterword that while Rumkowski's abuse of children in his care was well-documented, most of the specifics are mere conjecture. To that end, Sem-Sandberg's descriptions of Rumkowski's activities with the boy seem over-detailed and pointlessly drawn out, taking up a significant section of the book and having the effect of destroying the balancing act he has worked so hard to maintain: the reader simply condemns Rumkowski from that point on.
The knock-on effect is that the final two hundred or so pages of the book become a mighty slog: with the central character sentenced, there is a terrible inevitability about the remainder: none of the author's myriad minor characters are quite drawn out well enough to compel us to wade on and embrace their fates.
Overall, this book raises important enough questions about the Holocaust to suggest Schama is wrong in seeing no worth in its continued exploration in literature. But a noble and admirably researched piece of work is let down by being too long and, in some places, too contrived.
The literary world is, of course (as Schama readily accepts) hardly placed to issue any kind of moratorium on Holocaust literature, and for all those who could not begin to contemplate wading through a standard-sized book on the subject, let alone 'The Emperor of Lies', which comes in at a gruelling 662 pages, there are others who maintain these kinds of historical testimonies play a crucial role in ensuring modern-day society is not allowed to forget the horrors of the past.
Certainly, 'The Emperor of Lies' deserves to stand apart from many Holocaust novels because it strays from its subject's conventional territory and bravely focuses on the life of Chaim Rumkowski, the self-styled 'Eldest of the Jews', whose dictatorial rule over the Lodz ghetto made him one of the War's most controversial figures.
Under Rumkowski's rule, the ghetto was turned into a vast sweat-shop, churning out extraordinary quantities of goods requested by German forces in exchange for food supplies: it was Rumkowski's apparent belief that if he could make the Lodz ghetto so productive as to become an inexpendable part of the Nazi war effort, he could thus save its inhabitants from the fate visited upon others.
If it sounds a preposterous notion, it is worth noting that the Lodz ghetto survived much longer than any of the other ghettos in Poland; long after, for example, Warsaw's inhabitants had been sent to the death camps. As Sem-Sandberg posits in his afterword, had the War ended six months earlier, as it might very well have done, Rumkowski could have emerged an undisputed hero.
It didn't, and he didn't. Instead, Rumkowski's place in history is defined more by his megalomaniacal qualities, and his almost pathological obsession which led him to expel fellow Jews from the ghetto (and thus almost certainly to their deaths) for the slighest indiscretions, and to acquiesce to Nazi demands that all those of non-working age - the elderly and all those under ten - also be deported.
For the most part, Sem-Sandberg succeeds in balancing the contraditions and inconsistencies within the novel's pivotal character, imbueing if not him, then certainly his predicament, with sufficient sympathy to force the reader to address difficult questions of whether the end, in the unlikely event that it had indeed been different, might have justified his means.
In this respect, you could comfortably go so far as to suggest 'The Emperor of Lies' is the most technically proficient book on this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist.
It is badly let down, however, by one particular plot strand, involving Rumkowski's adoption of a son, Staszek, who he plucks from the deportation lines. More pertinently, it the nature of Rumkowski's relationship with him - which is explicitly paedophilic - which causes concern. The author admits in his afterword that while Rumkowski's abuse of children in his care was well-documented, most of the specifics are mere conjecture. To that end, Sem-Sandberg's descriptions of Rumkowski's activities with the boy seem over-detailed and pointlessly drawn out, taking up a significant section of the book and having the effect of destroying the balancing act he has worked so hard to maintain: the reader simply condemns Rumkowski from that point on.
The knock-on effect is that the final two hundred or so pages of the book become a mighty slog: with the central character sentenced, there is a terrible inevitability about the remainder: none of the author's myriad minor characters are quite drawn out well enough to compel us to wade on and embrace their fates.
Overall, this book raises important enough questions about the Holocaust to suggest Schama is wrong in seeing no worth in its continued exploration in literature. But a noble and admirably researched piece of work is let down by being too long and, in some places, too contrived.
October 28, 2025
Wenn ein Buch, daß sich aus der Perspektive eines Nachgeborenen, der persönlich nicht vom Geschehen betroffen war, in die Köpfe von Opfern des fürchterlichsten Menschheitsverbechens hineinzudenken versucht und darin auch auf ebenso fürchterliche Gedanken trifft, wie sie in jedem Menschen wohl irgendwann irgendwie gären, Opfer also als Täter zeigt, wenn ein solches Buch allerseits Zustimmung erfährt und Lob wegen des Mutes, den der Autor zeige, dann ist es vielleicht doch wichtig, noch andere Stimmen zu hören, zweifelnde Stimmen, Stimmen die Fragen stellen. Fragen wie: Geht das? Geht das von dem Standpunkt aus, aus dem Kontext, dem sich der Autor nicht entziehen kann?
Eine Inhaltsangabe des Buches zu geben fällt schwer. Mit vielen Stimmen erzählt Sem-Sandberg aus dem Getto von Lodz. Er konzentriert sich dabei vor allem auf den Präses, den Gettoältesten Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. Seine Geschichte steht im Mittelpunkt und bildet für alle anderen, die "zu Wort kommen", deren Gedanken und Gefühle geschildert werden - wobei der auktoriale Erzählstil nicht aufgegeben wird - den Fixpunkt. Die Geschichte des Gettos von Lodz ist bekannt und vor allem sehr gut dokumentiert, was Sem-Sandberg in seinem Nachwort auch hervorhebt. Dadurch wissen wir heute, daß Chaim Rumkowski wohl eine Art "Gettokönig" war, der sehr willkürlich und herrschsüchtig über "seine" Juden (Rumkowskis Ausdruck) verfügte. Durch die immer höheren Deportationsquoten der Deutschen in Bedrängnis geraten, kam Rumkowski in die fürchterliche Lage, mehr und mehr Menschen auswählen und in den sicheren Tod schicken zu müssen. Dies gipfelte in seiner Forderung an die Gettobewohner, ihm ihre Kinder zu überantworten. Die Chronik des Gettos gibt darüber ausführlich Auskunft, Raul Hilberg geht in seinem Jahrhundertwerk DIE VERNICHTUNG DER EUROPÄISCHEN JUDEN sehr ausführlich auf diese Begebenheiten ein.
Mit Hannah Arendts EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM begann die schwierige Diskussion, die es seit 1945 immer wieder um die Judenräte gegeben hat. Waren sie Kollaborateure, bereit, um sich und die ihrigen (vergeblich) zu retten, Massen ihnen "unterstellter" Juden an die Deutschen "zu verkaufen"? Oder waren sie Getriebene, die von den Deutschen nahezu teuflischen "Pakten" ausgesetzt waren und sich so oder so nicht adäquat verhalten konnten? Es ist wahrscheinlich müßig, diese Diskussion zu führen. Wer diesem Druck nicht ausgesetzt war, der kann in diesen Dingen wohl kaum seine Stimme erheben, gar urteilen, nein, er hat zu schweigen. Das ist natürlich eine sogenannte konservative, vielleicht radikale Haltung. Denn das bedeutete ja, daß man darüber nicht mehr sprechen (schreiben) könnte, wenn der letzte Augenzeuge gestorben wäre/ist. Richtig. Dies ist eine von mindestens 2 Haltungen, die die man zu respektieren hat. Es wird fiktionalisiert werden, Jonathan Littell, dessen DIE WOHLGESINNTEN möglicherweise eines der besten und wichtigsten Bücher der letzten 10 Jahre zum Thema ist, hat das eindrucksvoll bewiesen. Es wird manchmal (meist?) nicht gelingen, wie man in der Geschichte vom JUNGEN IM GESTREIFTEN PYJAMA nachlesen konnte, aber es wird von Mal zu Mal genauestens zu prüfen sein, was der Autor fiktionalisierend zusammenträgt.
Sem-Sandberg hat genau recherchiert, keine Frage. Fragwürdig erscheint, daß nicht immer deutlich wird, wo die Recherche endet und die Fiktion beginnt. Sicher, wenn die Figuren in ihren Gefühlen und Gedanken beschrieben werden, dann hat man es selbstredend mit Fiktionen zu tun. Doch gerade in den Dialogen (vor allem denen, die die Gettopolitik betreffen) kann man oft nicht zuordnen, ob es Überlieferungen sind oder nicht.
Doch ist dies nicht der Grund, daß an einem bestimmten Punkt der Lektüre Ärger einsetzt, bevor momentweise wirklicher Zorn auflodert. Es sind zum einen die Charakterisierungen, zum andern die Konstellationen, die Sem-Sandberg vorführt. Der Charakter des Präses Chaim Rumkowski ist eben nicht nur jenes Monster, daß "seine" Juden auffordert, ihm ihre Kinder "zu geben", die er den Deutschen quasi ausliefert, um somit andere, mehr Menschen zu retten, sondern er ist eben auch noch ein Pädophiler, er vergreift sich an Kindern und "vergiftet" diese sozusagen. Und erklärt wird das mit seiner Außenseiterrolle als Kind, als er Opfer von Hänseleien wurde und einmal sogar das eines Tötungsversuchs anderer Kinder. Wie weit dies belegbar ist, sei dahingestellt, sicherlich reicht es nicht aus, einen gesamten Charakter darauf fußend zu beschreiben, wenn man damit sein Verhalten unter Extrembedingungen - schlecht zu imaginierenden Extrembedingungen - zu erklären versucht. Wohl ist dieser Zug seines Charakters überliefert, er "hielt" sich angeblich Kinder, mißbrauchte und benutzte sie. Was wurde aus diesen Kindern? Und ist es angängig, jenes Kind, welches in den ELENDEN VON LODZ näher beschrieben vorkommt, das vom Präses wie ein Prinz behandelt und nach und nach verdorben wird, als kleines Nachwuchsmonster zu beschreiben? Es wirkt wie "angesteckt", es wird als ein zwar vollkommen verlorenes Wesen geschildert, dessen Eltern tot sind, dessen Sehnen in eine furchtbare Finsternis führt, das aber zugleich unfähig ist, weiterhin Liebe zu empfinden, das sich der Hassliebe gegen seinen Peiniger vollkommen hingibt.
Der Roman eckt hier an, und zwar mit sich selbst. Das Thema Kindesmißbrauch an sich ist schon derart diffizil und schwierig, ob es dann geeignet ist, als ein Aspekt der Shoah beschrieben zu werden? Und wird man den Beteiligten gerecht, wenn man deren Gefühle zu DIESEM Thema anschneidet, indem man die Ehefrau des Gettoältesten in ihrer Eifersucht darstellt, Eifersucht auf das Kind, und diesem gegenüber ablehnend? Unter den herrschenden Gettobedingungen erscheint das ganze Konstrukt wie installiert, um zu rationalisieren, was sich wahrscheinlich kaum rationalisieren lässt. Daß die herrschenden Zustände jede Art verwerflichen menschlichen Verhaltens hervorgebracht haben, daß die, die überlebten (und Rumkowski hat nicht überlebt) dies oft nur deshalb taten, weil andere früher starben und dadurch Ressourcen - z.B. Essen - freigaben, das weiß, wer Primo Levi oder Alexandar Tîsma gelesen hat. Muß es anhand eines Pädophilen nun auch fiktional und imaginiert nun hervorgehoben und noch einmal erzählt werden? In einem so eindeutigen Zusammenhang wie Kindesmißbrauch, bei dem die moralische Verurteilung fast automatisch eintritt und bei diesem Thema auch kaum zu leugnen ist? Kindesmißbrauch ist ein Kontext, der gerade in aktuellen Diskussionen manchmal auch archaische Reaktionen zeitigt. Es ist fraglich, das Augenmerk auf einen solchen Aspekt zu richten, der im Gesamtzusammenhang solch ungeheuerlicher Dimensionen steht.
Sem-Sandberg hat hervorragend recherchiert und er findet ganz sicher einen hohen Ton, seinen Recherchen literarisch Ausdruck zu verleihen. Es ist auch angängig, dies so und nur so zu schreiben, wie er das tut. Auch die Konstruktion des Buches, die Distanz, die er einhält, kann man ihm nicht wirklich vorwerfen, wenn manchmal auch jedwede empathische Regung der Figuren vollkommen zu verblassen droht. Nichts kann man ihm vorwerfen. Und dennoch kann man all das auch ablehnen. Kann ablehnen, daß sich jemand, der sie nicht erlebt hat, einer solchen Situation meint imaginierend nähern zu können. Allerdings erschließt sich die in diversen Kritiken zum Buch angemerkte Enthaltsamkeit des Autors hinsichtlich einiger Figuren nicht. An Sem-Sandbergs Schilderung Chaim Rumkowskis als ein Monster kann kein Zweifel bestehen. Sich diesem Mann gegenüber beim Lesen "neutral" zu positionieren, scheint nahezu unmöglich. Und so könnte man auch viele der auftretenden Figuren und der Art, wie sie eingeführt und beschrieben werden, als durchaus treffend charakterisiert bezeichnen; „treffend“ in dem Sinne, daß sie im Kontext des Romans sehr genau funktionieren.
Es drängt sich während der Lektüre irgendwann die Frage auf, wer hier eigentlich schreibt? Ist Sem-Sandberg selbst jüdischen Glaubens? Spielt das eine Rolle? Doch, tut es. In diesem Roman treten fast nur Juden auf, daneben gibt es an Deutschen nur den Gettoleiter Biebow und einige Handlanger, die jedoch selten vorkommen und noch seltener namentlich. Das bedeutet, daß hier auch fast ausschließlich Juden Juden Schreckliches antun. Das ganze perfide System der Organisation durch Selbstverwaltung, einschließlich der Gettopolizei, forcierte dies natürlich. Aber es zu beschreiben, ist eine ganz andere Frage, als es zu erforschen. Oder es erlebt zu haben. Oder es initiiert zu haben. Und es zu beschreiben, indem man das Grauen teils – einem entscheidenden Teil, wenn man seinen Text so anlegt, wie Sem-Sandberg es tut - imaginiert, entpuppt sich immer als sehr, sehr schwierig. Daß Juden Juden Schreckliches antaten, war ja nicht ihrer Schlechtigkeit oder Verdorbenheit geschuldet, sondern geschah auf Grund des Drucks, den die Deutschen ausübten. Sich als Nichtjude mit der Frage auseinanderzusetzen, inwiefern jenen, die sich der Gettopolizei anschlossen, die sich der Gestapo als Spitzel andienten, Schuld zuzusprechen sei, inwiefern sie sich moralisch in das Grauen verstrickt haben - und diese Fragen kommen zwangsläufig auf bei der Lektüre - ist ein riskantes Unterfangen. Man macht sich automatisch zum Richter, man maßt sich automatisch an, diese Fragen als allgemeingültige und moralische Grundsatzfragen betrachten zu können. Wenn man meint, diese Haltung einnehmen zu können, wird man sich die Frage gefallen lassen müssen, wo darin der tiefere Sinn liegt?
Wohl gemerkt: Es geht hier um die Möglichkeit der Darstellung des Schrecklichen, nicht darum, ob es so oder anders geschehen ist. Es ist die Frage der Darstellung selbst. Vielleicht ist es eine altmodische Position, wenn immer wieder Claude Lanzmanns Diktum anläßlich Spielbergs SCHINDLER`S LISTE (1993) am geistigen Horizont erscheint, daß nämlich die Shoah nicht darstellbar sei. Und es ist ja auch interessant, daß die, die es erleben mussten und darüber schrieben, in den seltensten Fällen Geschichten/Storys/dramaturgisch Zugespitztes erzählten. Sie schilderten meist - oft genug so nüchtern, daß es schmerzte, es so lesen zu müssen – einfach sehr genau ihre Erlebnisse, damit diese bewahrt, überliefert und als Mahnung der Nachwelt erhalten blieben.
Sem-Sandberg wagt einiges mit seinem Buch und er verfügt sicherlich literarisch über das nötige Rüstzeug, sich dem Thema anzunähern. Er trifft den hohen Ton, er schafft es, sprachlich genau zu bleiben und damit Distanz zum Sujet zu halten und beim Leser zu erzeugen, was eine angemessen wissenschaftliche Perspektive verschafft. Und es sei an dieser Stelle auch nicht unterschlagen, daß Sem-Sandberg grandiose Momente und auch sehr, sehr bedrückende gelingen. Wäre dies eine Studie von Menschen unter Extrembedingungen, wäre Vieles sicher große Literatur, doch die Nutzung wahrer Personen unter Extrembedingungen, die bisher zumindest als einmalig und unvergleichbar galten, die Nutzung der Chroniken der wahren Begebenheiten als Grundlage und Gerüst eines letztlich eben doch fiktionalen Romans, der stark darauf setzt, seine Figuren zu psychologisieren, machen das Unternehmen fragwürdig.
Es geht nicht darum, den Roman literarisch anzugreifen, Sem-Sandberg Bewußtsein oder Ernsthaftigkeit abzusprechen. Keineswegs. Es geht schlicht um die - natürlich in der Kunst nie erlaubte - Frage "Darf man das?". Oder, besser:"Geht das?"
Und es geht darum, bei der Lektüre, die jedem empfohlen sei, um sich einerseits selbst ein Bild zu machen, andererseits zu eigenen Recherchen angeregt zu werden und das Geschehen in Andenken zu halten, diese Frage im Kopf zu behalten.
Eine Inhaltsangabe des Buches zu geben fällt schwer. Mit vielen Stimmen erzählt Sem-Sandberg aus dem Getto von Lodz. Er konzentriert sich dabei vor allem auf den Präses, den Gettoältesten Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. Seine Geschichte steht im Mittelpunkt und bildet für alle anderen, die "zu Wort kommen", deren Gedanken und Gefühle geschildert werden - wobei der auktoriale Erzählstil nicht aufgegeben wird - den Fixpunkt. Die Geschichte des Gettos von Lodz ist bekannt und vor allem sehr gut dokumentiert, was Sem-Sandberg in seinem Nachwort auch hervorhebt. Dadurch wissen wir heute, daß Chaim Rumkowski wohl eine Art "Gettokönig" war, der sehr willkürlich und herrschsüchtig über "seine" Juden (Rumkowskis Ausdruck) verfügte. Durch die immer höheren Deportationsquoten der Deutschen in Bedrängnis geraten, kam Rumkowski in die fürchterliche Lage, mehr und mehr Menschen auswählen und in den sicheren Tod schicken zu müssen. Dies gipfelte in seiner Forderung an die Gettobewohner, ihm ihre Kinder zu überantworten. Die Chronik des Gettos gibt darüber ausführlich Auskunft, Raul Hilberg geht in seinem Jahrhundertwerk DIE VERNICHTUNG DER EUROPÄISCHEN JUDEN sehr ausführlich auf diese Begebenheiten ein.
Mit Hannah Arendts EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM begann die schwierige Diskussion, die es seit 1945 immer wieder um die Judenräte gegeben hat. Waren sie Kollaborateure, bereit, um sich und die ihrigen (vergeblich) zu retten, Massen ihnen "unterstellter" Juden an die Deutschen "zu verkaufen"? Oder waren sie Getriebene, die von den Deutschen nahezu teuflischen "Pakten" ausgesetzt waren und sich so oder so nicht adäquat verhalten konnten? Es ist wahrscheinlich müßig, diese Diskussion zu führen. Wer diesem Druck nicht ausgesetzt war, der kann in diesen Dingen wohl kaum seine Stimme erheben, gar urteilen, nein, er hat zu schweigen. Das ist natürlich eine sogenannte konservative, vielleicht radikale Haltung. Denn das bedeutete ja, daß man darüber nicht mehr sprechen (schreiben) könnte, wenn der letzte Augenzeuge gestorben wäre/ist. Richtig. Dies ist eine von mindestens 2 Haltungen, die die man zu respektieren hat. Es wird fiktionalisiert werden, Jonathan Littell, dessen DIE WOHLGESINNTEN möglicherweise eines der besten und wichtigsten Bücher der letzten 10 Jahre zum Thema ist, hat das eindrucksvoll bewiesen. Es wird manchmal (meist?) nicht gelingen, wie man in der Geschichte vom JUNGEN IM GESTREIFTEN PYJAMA nachlesen konnte, aber es wird von Mal zu Mal genauestens zu prüfen sein, was der Autor fiktionalisierend zusammenträgt.
Sem-Sandberg hat genau recherchiert, keine Frage. Fragwürdig erscheint, daß nicht immer deutlich wird, wo die Recherche endet und die Fiktion beginnt. Sicher, wenn die Figuren in ihren Gefühlen und Gedanken beschrieben werden, dann hat man es selbstredend mit Fiktionen zu tun. Doch gerade in den Dialogen (vor allem denen, die die Gettopolitik betreffen) kann man oft nicht zuordnen, ob es Überlieferungen sind oder nicht.
Doch ist dies nicht der Grund, daß an einem bestimmten Punkt der Lektüre Ärger einsetzt, bevor momentweise wirklicher Zorn auflodert. Es sind zum einen die Charakterisierungen, zum andern die Konstellationen, die Sem-Sandberg vorführt. Der Charakter des Präses Chaim Rumkowski ist eben nicht nur jenes Monster, daß "seine" Juden auffordert, ihm ihre Kinder "zu geben", die er den Deutschen quasi ausliefert, um somit andere, mehr Menschen zu retten, sondern er ist eben auch noch ein Pädophiler, er vergreift sich an Kindern und "vergiftet" diese sozusagen. Und erklärt wird das mit seiner Außenseiterrolle als Kind, als er Opfer von Hänseleien wurde und einmal sogar das eines Tötungsversuchs anderer Kinder. Wie weit dies belegbar ist, sei dahingestellt, sicherlich reicht es nicht aus, einen gesamten Charakter darauf fußend zu beschreiben, wenn man damit sein Verhalten unter Extrembedingungen - schlecht zu imaginierenden Extrembedingungen - zu erklären versucht. Wohl ist dieser Zug seines Charakters überliefert, er "hielt" sich angeblich Kinder, mißbrauchte und benutzte sie. Was wurde aus diesen Kindern? Und ist es angängig, jenes Kind, welches in den ELENDEN VON LODZ näher beschrieben vorkommt, das vom Präses wie ein Prinz behandelt und nach und nach verdorben wird, als kleines Nachwuchsmonster zu beschreiben? Es wirkt wie "angesteckt", es wird als ein zwar vollkommen verlorenes Wesen geschildert, dessen Eltern tot sind, dessen Sehnen in eine furchtbare Finsternis führt, das aber zugleich unfähig ist, weiterhin Liebe zu empfinden, das sich der Hassliebe gegen seinen Peiniger vollkommen hingibt.
Der Roman eckt hier an, und zwar mit sich selbst. Das Thema Kindesmißbrauch an sich ist schon derart diffizil und schwierig, ob es dann geeignet ist, als ein Aspekt der Shoah beschrieben zu werden? Und wird man den Beteiligten gerecht, wenn man deren Gefühle zu DIESEM Thema anschneidet, indem man die Ehefrau des Gettoältesten in ihrer Eifersucht darstellt, Eifersucht auf das Kind, und diesem gegenüber ablehnend? Unter den herrschenden Gettobedingungen erscheint das ganze Konstrukt wie installiert, um zu rationalisieren, was sich wahrscheinlich kaum rationalisieren lässt. Daß die herrschenden Zustände jede Art verwerflichen menschlichen Verhaltens hervorgebracht haben, daß die, die überlebten (und Rumkowski hat nicht überlebt) dies oft nur deshalb taten, weil andere früher starben und dadurch Ressourcen - z.B. Essen - freigaben, das weiß, wer Primo Levi oder Alexandar Tîsma gelesen hat. Muß es anhand eines Pädophilen nun auch fiktional und imaginiert nun hervorgehoben und noch einmal erzählt werden? In einem so eindeutigen Zusammenhang wie Kindesmißbrauch, bei dem die moralische Verurteilung fast automatisch eintritt und bei diesem Thema auch kaum zu leugnen ist? Kindesmißbrauch ist ein Kontext, der gerade in aktuellen Diskussionen manchmal auch archaische Reaktionen zeitigt. Es ist fraglich, das Augenmerk auf einen solchen Aspekt zu richten, der im Gesamtzusammenhang solch ungeheuerlicher Dimensionen steht.
Sem-Sandberg hat hervorragend recherchiert und er findet ganz sicher einen hohen Ton, seinen Recherchen literarisch Ausdruck zu verleihen. Es ist auch angängig, dies so und nur so zu schreiben, wie er das tut. Auch die Konstruktion des Buches, die Distanz, die er einhält, kann man ihm nicht wirklich vorwerfen, wenn manchmal auch jedwede empathische Regung der Figuren vollkommen zu verblassen droht. Nichts kann man ihm vorwerfen. Und dennoch kann man all das auch ablehnen. Kann ablehnen, daß sich jemand, der sie nicht erlebt hat, einer solchen Situation meint imaginierend nähern zu können. Allerdings erschließt sich die in diversen Kritiken zum Buch angemerkte Enthaltsamkeit des Autors hinsichtlich einiger Figuren nicht. An Sem-Sandbergs Schilderung Chaim Rumkowskis als ein Monster kann kein Zweifel bestehen. Sich diesem Mann gegenüber beim Lesen "neutral" zu positionieren, scheint nahezu unmöglich. Und so könnte man auch viele der auftretenden Figuren und der Art, wie sie eingeführt und beschrieben werden, als durchaus treffend charakterisiert bezeichnen; „treffend“ in dem Sinne, daß sie im Kontext des Romans sehr genau funktionieren.
Es drängt sich während der Lektüre irgendwann die Frage auf, wer hier eigentlich schreibt? Ist Sem-Sandberg selbst jüdischen Glaubens? Spielt das eine Rolle? Doch, tut es. In diesem Roman treten fast nur Juden auf, daneben gibt es an Deutschen nur den Gettoleiter Biebow und einige Handlanger, die jedoch selten vorkommen und noch seltener namentlich. Das bedeutet, daß hier auch fast ausschließlich Juden Juden Schreckliches antun. Das ganze perfide System der Organisation durch Selbstverwaltung, einschließlich der Gettopolizei, forcierte dies natürlich. Aber es zu beschreiben, ist eine ganz andere Frage, als es zu erforschen. Oder es erlebt zu haben. Oder es initiiert zu haben. Und es zu beschreiben, indem man das Grauen teils – einem entscheidenden Teil, wenn man seinen Text so anlegt, wie Sem-Sandberg es tut - imaginiert, entpuppt sich immer als sehr, sehr schwierig. Daß Juden Juden Schreckliches antaten, war ja nicht ihrer Schlechtigkeit oder Verdorbenheit geschuldet, sondern geschah auf Grund des Drucks, den die Deutschen ausübten. Sich als Nichtjude mit der Frage auseinanderzusetzen, inwiefern jenen, die sich der Gettopolizei anschlossen, die sich der Gestapo als Spitzel andienten, Schuld zuzusprechen sei, inwiefern sie sich moralisch in das Grauen verstrickt haben - und diese Fragen kommen zwangsläufig auf bei der Lektüre - ist ein riskantes Unterfangen. Man macht sich automatisch zum Richter, man maßt sich automatisch an, diese Fragen als allgemeingültige und moralische Grundsatzfragen betrachten zu können. Wenn man meint, diese Haltung einnehmen zu können, wird man sich die Frage gefallen lassen müssen, wo darin der tiefere Sinn liegt?
Wohl gemerkt: Es geht hier um die Möglichkeit der Darstellung des Schrecklichen, nicht darum, ob es so oder anders geschehen ist. Es ist die Frage der Darstellung selbst. Vielleicht ist es eine altmodische Position, wenn immer wieder Claude Lanzmanns Diktum anläßlich Spielbergs SCHINDLER`S LISTE (1993) am geistigen Horizont erscheint, daß nämlich die Shoah nicht darstellbar sei. Und es ist ja auch interessant, daß die, die es erleben mussten und darüber schrieben, in den seltensten Fällen Geschichten/Storys/dramaturgisch Zugespitztes erzählten. Sie schilderten meist - oft genug so nüchtern, daß es schmerzte, es so lesen zu müssen – einfach sehr genau ihre Erlebnisse, damit diese bewahrt, überliefert und als Mahnung der Nachwelt erhalten blieben.
Sem-Sandberg wagt einiges mit seinem Buch und er verfügt sicherlich literarisch über das nötige Rüstzeug, sich dem Thema anzunähern. Er trifft den hohen Ton, er schafft es, sprachlich genau zu bleiben und damit Distanz zum Sujet zu halten und beim Leser zu erzeugen, was eine angemessen wissenschaftliche Perspektive verschafft. Und es sei an dieser Stelle auch nicht unterschlagen, daß Sem-Sandberg grandiose Momente und auch sehr, sehr bedrückende gelingen. Wäre dies eine Studie von Menschen unter Extrembedingungen, wäre Vieles sicher große Literatur, doch die Nutzung wahrer Personen unter Extrembedingungen, die bisher zumindest als einmalig und unvergleichbar galten, die Nutzung der Chroniken der wahren Begebenheiten als Grundlage und Gerüst eines letztlich eben doch fiktionalen Romans, der stark darauf setzt, seine Figuren zu psychologisieren, machen das Unternehmen fragwürdig.
Es geht nicht darum, den Roman literarisch anzugreifen, Sem-Sandberg Bewußtsein oder Ernsthaftigkeit abzusprechen. Keineswegs. Es geht schlicht um die - natürlich in der Kunst nie erlaubte - Frage "Darf man das?". Oder, besser:"Geht das?"
Und es geht darum, bei der Lektüre, die jedem empfohlen sei, um sich einerseits selbst ein Bild zu machen, andererseits zu eigenen Recherchen angeregt zu werden und das Geschehen in Andenken zu halten, diese Frage im Kopf zu behalten.
September 20, 2023
Императорът на лъжите няма власт дори над своята съдба: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/i...
Няма как Хаим Румковски да не е в центъра на тази книга, макар че авторът често се отклонява в безброй малки странични линии, описващи различните абсурдни проявления на живота и оцеляването в гетото, както и безбройните банални начини да умреш. Силно поляризиращата фигура на Румковски е надвиснала като сянка над целия роман, големият въпрос дали той е искрен наивник, който е убеден, че ако превърне своето гето и неговите стотици хиляди обитатели в добре смазана работна машина, това ще им осигури относително безопасен живот в бъдещия победил във войната Райх, или е бил просто властолюбив опортюнист, който е готов на всичко, за да задържи своята водеща позиция. Дори да я плати с детски животи, при все че една от основните му мантри е колко е загрижен за децата, за бъдещето на евреите в тяхно лице. Лъжата нещо естествено ли е – знае ли, че всеки списък и всеки конвой от хора, които напускат гетото, са предназначени за лагерите на смъртта като Аушвиц? Навярно знае.
CIELA Books
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/i...
Няма как Хаим Румковски да не е в центъра на тази книга, макар че авторът често се отклонява в безброй малки странични линии, описващи различните абсурдни проявления на живота и оцеляването в гетото, както и безбройните банални начини да умреш. Силно поляризиращата фигура на Румковски е надвиснала като сянка над целия роман, големият въпрос дали той е искрен наивник, който е убеден, че ако превърне своето гето и неговите стотици хиляди обитатели в добре смазана работна машина, това ще им осигури относително безопасен живот в бъдещия победил във войната Райх, или е бил просто властолюбив опортюнист, който е готов на всичко, за да задържи своята водеща позиция. Дори да я плати с детски животи, при все че една от основните му мантри е колко е загрижен за децата, за бъдещето на евреите в тяхно лице. Лъжата нещо естествено ли е – знае ли, че всеки списък и всеки конвой от хора, които напускат гетото, са предназначени за лагерите на смъртта като Аушвиц? Навярно знае.
CIELA Books
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/i...
September 28, 2012
a masterpiece of literature destined to go through time as a benchmark and meditation of nazis in poland, ghettos of 1940 on, collaborators and resisters, and holocaust writings. swedish author sem-sandberg based much of this novel on the "ghetto encyclopedia" of lodz which has recently, and finally been printed, cataloged and made available and that he mined.
so, was Mordechai chaim rumkowski a megalomaniacal monster bent on sexually molesting his many orphans and ripping off as many jews of their property, money, and very lives to enrich himself, or,
was m c rumkowski a desperate savoir chopping his people in two to save as many as possible while trying to hold at arms length the monstrous nazi machine, bent on exterminating every single last jew on earth?
well, you''l just have to read the book, but a wonderful addition to the "blood lands" writings that we DO already have.
like post-war farmer's novel Stone Upon Stone
and history and stat slap in the face of any student of wwii Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
and the futility and utmost necessity to resist Rondo and Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler and fallada Every Man Dies Alone
if one considers the what, nazis?, of goodreads reviewers who poopoo this book seem legion, that is reason alone that this book was written and translated.
has nice maps and glossary and list of characters.
so, was Mordechai chaim rumkowski a megalomaniacal monster bent on sexually molesting his many orphans and ripping off as many jews of their property, money, and very lives to enrich himself, or,
was m c rumkowski a desperate savoir chopping his people in two to save as many as possible while trying to hold at arms length the monstrous nazi machine, bent on exterminating every single last jew on earth?
well, you''l just have to read the book, but a wonderful addition to the "blood lands" writings that we DO already have.
like post-war farmer's novel Stone Upon Stone
and history and stat slap in the face of any student of wwii Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
and the futility and utmost necessity to resist Rondo and Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler and fallada Every Man Dies Alone
if one considers the what, nazis?, of goodreads reviewers who poopoo this book seem legion, that is reason alone that this book was written and translated.
has nice maps and glossary and list of characters.
April 17, 2021
Den här romanen fick Sem-Sandberg Augustpris för 2009 och därför är den med i min läsutmaning.
Lódz är namnet på en stad i Polen där ett judiskt ghetto och arbetsläger inrättades under andra världskriget. Det här är med andra ord en roman om förintelsen. Men hör och häpna! Den här berättelsen är uthärdlig och till och med bitvis rolig. Läsaren vet att alla kommer att dö, men ändå skulle jag vilja påstå att De fattiga i Lódz till stor del handlar om hopp.
Den bygger på en drygt 3000 sidor lång gettokrönika, från vilken författaren hämtat information och underlag. Krönikan skrevs av anställda i gettot, den bevarades och utgavs i Tyskland 2007. Som en röd tråd genom hela den långa berättelsen får vi följa Rumkowski. Han fanns alltså på riktigt, och utsågs av tyskarna till judarnas ledare i lägret. Annars är det här en kollektiv skildring som handlar om många olika karaktärer. Författaren lyckas väcka dessa personer till liv i all sin mänsklighet som innebär mycket mer än att vara offer. Det slår mig hur märkvärdigt det egentligen är att ingen gjort detta tidigare. Alltså skrivit om de fängslade judarna som de komplexa människor de var, som alla andra. De gör bra och dåliga saker, de är sunda och har storhetsvansinne, de är modiga och fega, en är pedofil. De lider givetvis, men de skojar också, de spelar musik och teater, de gör motstånd. Många hoppas och många ger också upp.
Humorn, hoppet, motståndet tillsammans med det fragmentariska upplägget gör att läsningen blir måttligt känslostark. Att författaren själv saknar personlig koppling till karaktärerna kan också vara ett skäl. Tack vare författarens inlevelseförmåga och språk lyckas han få läsaren att känna med karaktärerna. Desperationen på grund av fattigdom, svält, slavliknande förhållanden och inte minst instängdhet. Men de vet ju inte att transporten från gettot går till gaskammaren. På samma gång som jag känner distans blir jag påmind om att alla dessa porträtt faktiskt bygger på människor som funnits.
Lódz är namnet på en stad i Polen där ett judiskt ghetto och arbetsläger inrättades under andra världskriget. Det här är med andra ord en roman om förintelsen. Men hör och häpna! Den här berättelsen är uthärdlig och till och med bitvis rolig. Läsaren vet att alla kommer att dö, men ändå skulle jag vilja påstå att De fattiga i Lódz till stor del handlar om hopp.
Den bygger på en drygt 3000 sidor lång gettokrönika, från vilken författaren hämtat information och underlag. Krönikan skrevs av anställda i gettot, den bevarades och utgavs i Tyskland 2007. Som en röd tråd genom hela den långa berättelsen får vi följa Rumkowski. Han fanns alltså på riktigt, och utsågs av tyskarna till judarnas ledare i lägret. Annars är det här en kollektiv skildring som handlar om många olika karaktärer. Författaren lyckas väcka dessa personer till liv i all sin mänsklighet som innebär mycket mer än att vara offer. Det slår mig hur märkvärdigt det egentligen är att ingen gjort detta tidigare. Alltså skrivit om de fängslade judarna som de komplexa människor de var, som alla andra. De gör bra och dåliga saker, de är sunda och har storhetsvansinne, de är modiga och fega, en är pedofil. De lider givetvis, men de skojar också, de spelar musik och teater, de gör motstånd. Många hoppas och många ger också upp.
Humorn, hoppet, motståndet tillsammans med det fragmentariska upplägget gör att läsningen blir måttligt känslostark. Att författaren själv saknar personlig koppling till karaktärerna kan också vara ett skäl. Tack vare författarens inlevelseförmåga och språk lyckas han få läsaren att känna med karaktärerna. Desperationen på grund av fattigdom, svält, slavliknande förhållanden och inte minst instängdhet. Men de vet ju inte att transporten från gettot går till gaskammaren. På samma gång som jag känner distans blir jag påmind om att alla dessa porträtt faktiskt bygger på människor som funnits.
May 2, 2024
“Императорът на лъжите” от Стив Сем-Синдберг е мащабен, бих го нарекла документален, роман за съдбата на повече от четвърт милион евреи, затворени в гетото на полския град Лодз. Това е второто най-голямо гето в окупираната от германските войски Европа след Варшавското. Създадено през април 1940 г. като етап към изграждането на “свободна от евреи” зона, то се превръща постепенно в мощен индустриален център, който “захранва” немската военна машина. Тази трансформация до голяма степен се дължи на противоречивата личност на Хаим Румковски и неговия безумен план да превърне сънародниците си в незаменими работници на Райха, за да ги спаси от неминуема гибел.
Книгата проследява в детайли периода 1940-1944, през който гетото успява да просъществува. Изключителна работа е свършил Стив Сем-Синдберг! Опирайки се на богата документална база, той не се колебае да въведе читателя в тази “фабрика на злото”, в сложната йерархия от взаимоотношения вътре в гетото и чудовищните сделки с германското управление. В центъра на романа е поставена фигурата на Хаим Румковски, назначен от нацистката администрация за председател на еврейския съвет (Judenrat) в гетото. Благодарение на личните си връзки той получава безпрецедентна власт. Представя всички свои действия като продиктувани от грижа за оцеляването на общността, но дали наистина е благороден спасител или заслепен от амбиция безмилостен опортюнист?
“Императорът на лъжите” е много тежка, но превъзходно написана книга. Постепенно навлизате в мрачния свят на гетото и още след първите глави вече не можете да оставите героите. За мен този роман е явление в литературата, посветена на Холокоста, заради майсторското съчетаване на документална проза и художествена фикция, заради честния журналистически подход на автора, който не спестява нищо в тази впечатляваща историческа и психологическа панорама на злото.
[Мнението е публикувано първоначално на сайта
azcheta.com]
Книгата проследява в детайли периода 1940-1944, през който гетото успява да просъществува. Изключителна работа е свършил Стив Сем-Синдберг! Опирайки се на богата документална база, той не се колебае да въведе читателя в тази “фабрика на злото”, в сложната йерархия от взаимоотношения вътре в гетото и чудовищните сделки с германското управление. В центъра на романа е поставена фигурата на Хаим Румковски, назначен от нацистката администрация за председател на еврейския съвет (Judenrat) в гетото. Благодарение на личните си връзки той получава безпрецедентна власт. Представя всички свои действия като продиктувани от грижа за оцеляването на общността, но дали наистина е благороден спасител или заслепен от амбиция безмилостен опортюнист?
“Императорът на лъжите” е много тежка, но превъзходно написана книга. Постепенно навлизате в мрачния свят на гетото и още след първите глави вече не можете да оставите героите. За мен този роман е явление в литературата, посветена на Холокоста, заради майсторското съчетаване на документална проза и художествена фикция, заради честния журналистически подход на автора, който не спестява нищо в тази впечатляваща историческа и психологическа панорама на злото.
[Мнението е публикувано първоначално на сайта
azcheta.com]
November 3, 2011
Low and behold it’s another non-detective novel from Sweden. That’s my second in a couple weeks. Could this be a publishing trend? Or is it that this novel The Emperor of Lies and The Long Ships are the only two Swedish novels that do not involve Perps.
Back in the land of Heidi and gruesome murder mysteries, The Emperor of Lies was big bestseller. It is a prize winning novel about the Lodzghetto by Steve Sem-Sandberg. Thanks to Sarah Death it has been translated into English.
The novel is based on historical fact in more ways than its location and time period. Sem-Sandberg has used Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski to center his story. Rumkowski, a Jew, was convinced that he could show the Nazi s that Jews were an indispensible labor force. He was put in charge of the ghetto and petitioned the Nazi s for food and money in exchange for labor. He got part of what he wanted. In trade for labor the ghetto got food although not as much as they actually needed. They had no resources to provide any food for themselves.
You don’t get any more evil villains than Nazis and The Emperor of Lies makes the most of them. Their evilness in the creation of Lodz is compounded by their more intimate actions of wickedness throughout the novel. This is all brought off very well by Sem-Sandberg but it is the unexpected bad guy that takes Emperor out of the realm of Nazi atrocity novel #874,000 and makes it fascinating reading. This surprise is Rumkowski. Sem-Sandberg manipulates a page turning slow build up from heart-in-the-right-place-if-misguided-Father-figure-autocrat to Nazi stooge.
There is a density to Sem-Sandberg’s storytelling that at the start of the novel was a problem for me. He doesn’t begin the book at the beginning of the ghetto’s history or with any explanation and I felt that my ignorance was getting in the way of my reading. My knowledge was bare bones at best. About 60 pages in to the novel I took a break and did a little research. This made all the difference for me. I re-started the book and was much more comfortable with Sem-Sandberg’s measured doling out of the ghetto’s history.
I did not become enough of a scholar to tell what other characters in the story might be real. My guess is that the bulk of the characters are entirely fictional. Sem-Sandberg is not completely successful in making his very large cast of characters three dimensional. All the main players are well constructed, interesting and Jew or not capable of a great deal of moral ambiguity. However there are many people who walk on and off the arena for varying amounts of time and story exposition without anything other than physical characteristics that distinguishes them from one another.
I was hypnotized by The Emperor of Lies. The detail of daily life in the ghetto that Steve Sem-Sandberg recreates is as mesmerizing as it is overwhelming. It was history that I knew nothing about presented in a fascinating multilevel narrative. Sem-Sandberg has left sentiment out of his novel. There are some heroics and much courage but there is also the story of 300,000 humans living in a very small space under a daily promise of death from disease, starvation, the neighbor who wants their apartment and the Nazis. That is a powerful scenario.
Back in the land of Heidi and gruesome murder mysteries, The Emperor of Lies was big bestseller. It is a prize winning novel about the Lodzghetto by Steve Sem-Sandberg. Thanks to Sarah Death it has been translated into English.
The novel is based on historical fact in more ways than its location and time period. Sem-Sandberg has used Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski to center his story. Rumkowski, a Jew, was convinced that he could show the Nazi s that Jews were an indispensible labor force. He was put in charge of the ghetto and petitioned the Nazi s for food and money in exchange for labor. He got part of what he wanted. In trade for labor the ghetto got food although not as much as they actually needed. They had no resources to provide any food for themselves.
You don’t get any more evil villains than Nazis and The Emperor of Lies makes the most of them. Their evilness in the creation of Lodz is compounded by their more intimate actions of wickedness throughout the novel. This is all brought off very well by Sem-Sandberg but it is the unexpected bad guy that takes Emperor out of the realm of Nazi atrocity novel #874,000 and makes it fascinating reading. This surprise is Rumkowski. Sem-Sandberg manipulates a page turning slow build up from heart-in-the-right-place-if-misguided-Father-figure-autocrat to Nazi stooge.
There is a density to Sem-Sandberg’s storytelling that at the start of the novel was a problem for me. He doesn’t begin the book at the beginning of the ghetto’s history or with any explanation and I felt that my ignorance was getting in the way of my reading. My knowledge was bare bones at best. About 60 pages in to the novel I took a break and did a little research. This made all the difference for me. I re-started the book and was much more comfortable with Sem-Sandberg’s measured doling out of the ghetto’s history.
I did not become enough of a scholar to tell what other characters in the story might be real. My guess is that the bulk of the characters are entirely fictional. Sem-Sandberg is not completely successful in making his very large cast of characters three dimensional. All the main players are well constructed, interesting and Jew or not capable of a great deal of moral ambiguity. However there are many people who walk on and off the arena for varying amounts of time and story exposition without anything other than physical characteristics that distinguishes them from one another.
I was hypnotized by The Emperor of Lies. The detail of daily life in the ghetto that Steve Sem-Sandberg recreates is as mesmerizing as it is overwhelming. It was history that I knew nothing about presented in a fascinating multilevel narrative. Sem-Sandberg has left sentiment out of his novel. There are some heroics and much courage but there is also the story of 300,000 humans living in a very small space under a daily promise of death from disease, starvation, the neighbor who wants their apartment and the Nazis. That is a powerful scenario.
abandoned
November 23, 2020I know I offered to review this for Stu’s Shadow Independent Foreign Fiction Prize team, but having plodded through the first 51 pages of 664, it’s quite clear to me that I don’t like it at all, and so I’m not going to read the rest of it.
Simon Schama at The Financial Times says it so much better than I ever could: whatever is the point? If you are disposed to try to understand the unfathomable Holocaust, this tawdry novel is not going to help you, and if it is the only book about the Holocaust that you read, its prurient violence may well put you off reading anything better.
The nastiest thing about it is that by fictionalising the factual – the culpability of one Jew in the murder of his fellow citizens - it essays the notion that Jews helped to bring about their own destruction on themselves. And in a mere 50 pages it has managed to reinforce all kinds of anti-Semitic stereotypes; I refuse to read more of it.
To read the rest of my review, (and access links to other reviews), please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/04/01/th...
I don't rate books I don't finish.
Simon Schama at The Financial Times says it so much better than I ever could: whatever is the point? If you are disposed to try to understand the unfathomable Holocaust, this tawdry novel is not going to help you, and if it is the only book about the Holocaust that you read, its prurient violence may well put you off reading anything better.
The nastiest thing about it is that by fictionalising the factual – the culpability of one Jew in the murder of his fellow citizens - it essays the notion that Jews helped to bring about their own destruction on themselves. And in a mere 50 pages it has managed to reinforce all kinds of anti-Semitic stereotypes; I refuse to read more of it.
To read the rest of my review, (and access links to other reviews), please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/04/01/th...
I don't rate books I don't finish.
November 17, 2012
I really need to think about this. It's a good but really depressing book. The writing is brillant.
I might come back and add more latter, but right now that's all I've got.
I might come back and add more latter, but right now that's all I've got.
June 6, 2025
Mordechai Chaim Rumkowsk the head of the Lodz ghetto has been the subject of literature previous to this novel, Primo Levi wrote about him (and there is an interesting article that examines Levi's response to Rumkowski at http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/p...) and in 1978 he was the subject of a much praised novel about him 'King of the Jews' by Leslie Epstein. But memory, historical or literary is brief these days. In all the thousand of hours about WWII and the Nazis on The History Channel you will be hard pushed to find Rumkowski and I wonder for younger readers does Primo Levi's name still resonate that it does for mine? I won't say that 'The Emperor of Lies' could ever replace 'The Drowned and the Saved' but it is a work that can sit next to Levi's without embarrassment.
For me 'The Emperor of Lies' was one of the most transformative reading experiences. It reminded me of what I felt as a teenager discovering how powerful great books could be. They could be visceral in the way they attacked your emotions and feelings and the 'Emperor of Lies' is like that. It is not an easy read, and the number of carping, negative reviews is astounding, but not surprising. If you like your holocaust literature to follow the tendentious and mendacious fatuities of works like 'The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas' by John Boyne then you might as well not bother reading my review or the novel.
This is a great, disturbing, heartbreaking and wonderful novel. Although I have shelved it in my three top categories and given it five stars I wanted to do more. This is a novel that, in one sense demands all those superlatives attached to epic films but this is an epic tale of hell on earth and what it should be compared with is not cinema but the panel of Hell from 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch. That is the only work of art that evokes, for me, similar feelings to those inspired by 'The Emperor of Lies'. If you remember “He who searches for evil, must first look at his own reflection.” (thank you Confucius) then you will begin to grasp what this novel attempts by looking at through the Lodz ghetto through the life of its 'king' Mordechai Chaim Rumkowsk.
That Rumkowski is a monster goes without saying but Sem-Sandberg has created a man who we can't but measure our own real or potential failings against. It is easy to see ourselves responding as Adam Czerniaków the head of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Cz...) or even better in Janusz Korczak with his orphans (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_...) but we should look at Rumkowski for a more honest insight into our nature. Rumkowski headed a ghetto and once ran an orphanage and not only failed to display an ounce of Czerniakow's or Korczak's decency he is their polar opposite. It is wrong for anybody who has not faced one of those existential moments to casually condemn those who fail to make the right choices but it must be faced that once you embark on moral equivocation there is no stopping the slide. Be clear that the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the horrors of Lodz but if you chose to sup with the devil you are doomed. For Rumkowski by the time he made his famous 'give me your children' speech he was so far into compromise he wasn't going further down the path to perdition he was already lost.
I realise I haven't discussed this novel in detail only its subject matter but what Sem-Sandberg has done is use literature to go beyond the historical record to create a portrait that is greater than fact. Sometimes it is only through art that real truth can be understood. This is such a work.
For me 'The Emperor of Lies' was one of the most transformative reading experiences. It reminded me of what I felt as a teenager discovering how powerful great books could be. They could be visceral in the way they attacked your emotions and feelings and the 'Emperor of Lies' is like that. It is not an easy read, and the number of carping, negative reviews is astounding, but not surprising. If you like your holocaust literature to follow the tendentious and mendacious fatuities of works like 'The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas' by John Boyne then you might as well not bother reading my review or the novel.
This is a great, disturbing, heartbreaking and wonderful novel. Although I have shelved it in my three top categories and given it five stars I wanted to do more. This is a novel that, in one sense demands all those superlatives attached to epic films but this is an epic tale of hell on earth and what it should be compared with is not cinema but the panel of Hell from 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch. That is the only work of art that evokes, for me, similar feelings to those inspired by 'The Emperor of Lies'. If you remember “He who searches for evil, must first look at his own reflection.” (thank you Confucius) then you will begin to grasp what this novel attempts by looking at through the Lodz ghetto through the life of its 'king' Mordechai Chaim Rumkowsk.
That Rumkowski is a monster goes without saying but Sem-Sandberg has created a man who we can't but measure our own real or potential failings against. It is easy to see ourselves responding as Adam Czerniaków the head of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Cz...) or even better in Janusz Korczak with his orphans (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_...) but we should look at Rumkowski for a more honest insight into our nature. Rumkowski headed a ghetto and once ran an orphanage and not only failed to display an ounce of Czerniakow's or Korczak's decency he is their polar opposite. It is wrong for anybody who has not faced one of those existential moments to casually condemn those who fail to make the right choices but it must be faced that once you embark on moral equivocation there is no stopping the slide. Be clear that the Nazis were ultimately responsible for the horrors of Lodz but if you chose to sup with the devil you are doomed. For Rumkowski by the time he made his famous 'give me your children' speech he was so far into compromise he wasn't going further down the path to perdition he was already lost.
I realise I haven't discussed this novel in detail only its subject matter but what Sem-Sandberg has done is use literature to go beyond the historical record to create a portrait that is greater than fact. Sometimes it is only through art that real truth can be understood. This is such a work.
December 6, 2011
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg is an award winning historical fiction book. The book was translated from Swedish and tells about real life, as well as fictional characters.
The ghetto at Łódź, Poland has existed for two years. Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Nazi nominated “elder of Jews” is asked to supply 20,000 Jews for deportation. The lies and shadows of this complex man cover many pages of this book.
Adam Rzepin lives with his father and mentally ill sister. Adam is trying to survive with his family but will he?
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg is still an amazing, somber, hard look at a Jewish Ghetto, in Łódź Poland during World War II. The book has several stories which, might not intertwine, certainly run parallel to one another.
While a novel, the book’s research is a amazing and I sometimes forgot I was reading about the fictitious lives of others. The author is inside the heads of the characters but yet keeps a watchful eye on the historical timeline and incorporates non-fiction documents into the narrative.
Mixing fact and fiction is always a tricky business especially when writing historical fiction as oppose to writing a fictional story which takes place in the past. There are many historical figures which go in and out of this book such as Heinrich Himmler and the leader of the Warsaw ghetto Adam Czerniakow. Secretly I was waiting (in vain) for Mordechai Anilevich to make an appearance.
One of the main characters in the book Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, which is the character the book’s title refers to, is neither sympathetic nor relatable. Rumkowski which functions as the head of the ghetto and was put in place by the Nazis. He is a controversial figure to this day and even more so in the book. There is no doubt that Rumkowski had found himself in some very difficult, unenviable positions such as selecting ghetto residents for “deportation”.
The cast of characters in the book is dazzling, some like Adam Rzepin we read a lot about, others like the ghetto’s smuggler king appear and disappear quickly from the pages. But for all the different aspects of this book, it is still a chilling look at the ghetto and reconstructs its three dimensional life in an honest and somber way.
The book is dark and disturbing, but it has some humor, such as a ghetto residents asking what they would do with guns because:
"however would we go about getting the Chairman's permission to use them?"
Was Rumkowski working for the good of the Jews or the Nazis? Was he a collaborator? Those are some of the questions in the book which the reader has to answer for themselves.
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
The ghetto at Łódź, Poland has existed for two years. Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Nazi nominated “elder of Jews” is asked to supply 20,000 Jews for deportation. The lies and shadows of this complex man cover many pages of this book.
Adam Rzepin lives with his father and mentally ill sister. Adam is trying to survive with his family but will he?
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg is still an amazing, somber, hard look at a Jewish Ghetto, in Łódź Poland during World War II. The book has several stories which, might not intertwine, certainly run parallel to one another.
While a novel, the book’s research is a amazing and I sometimes forgot I was reading about the fictitious lives of others. The author is inside the heads of the characters but yet keeps a watchful eye on the historical timeline and incorporates non-fiction documents into the narrative.
Mixing fact and fiction is always a tricky business especially when writing historical fiction as oppose to writing a fictional story which takes place in the past. There are many historical figures which go in and out of this book such as Heinrich Himmler and the leader of the Warsaw ghetto Adam Czerniakow. Secretly I was waiting (in vain) for Mordechai Anilevich to make an appearance.
One of the main characters in the book Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, which is the character the book’s title refers to, is neither sympathetic nor relatable. Rumkowski which functions as the head of the ghetto and was put in place by the Nazis. He is a controversial figure to this day and even more so in the book. There is no doubt that Rumkowski had found himself in some very difficult, unenviable positions such as selecting ghetto residents for “deportation”.
The cast of characters in the book is dazzling, some like Adam Rzepin we read a lot about, others like the ghetto’s smuggler king appear and disappear quickly from the pages. But for all the different aspects of this book, it is still a chilling look at the ghetto and reconstructs its three dimensional life in an honest and somber way.
The book is dark and disturbing, but it has some humor, such as a ghetto residents asking what they would do with guns because:
"however would we go about getting the Chairman's permission to use them?"
Was Rumkowski working for the good of the Jews or the Nazis? Was he a collaborator? Those are some of the questions in the book which the reader has to answer for themselves.
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
July 27, 2012
Possibly a masterpiece...we've had the Holocaust done in so many ways and think we know it all...but this uses fact in a new way, looking at how manipulative people are in survival mode.
The detail is extraordinnary as is the standard of writing..an unusually high standard these days...and althogh it is unrelentingly grim, that gets you to read on.
You'll be staggered at how people behave when you know it is factually based.
The one issue is: you don't engage with anyone as nobody is really sympathetic - and some readers wil struggle with that.
This is an out of the ordinary book...
The detail is extraordinnary as is the standard of writing..an unusually high standard these days...and althogh it is unrelentingly grim, that gets you to read on.
You'll be staggered at how people behave when you know it is factually based.
The one issue is: you don't engage with anyone as nobody is really sympathetic - and some readers wil struggle with that.
This is an out of the ordinary book...
June 25, 2018
E da, kad je vlastita egzistencija ugrožena, nema mjesta za drugo biće! I živi se dan za danom, sve do onog posljednjeg.
Je li Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski šef u Litzmannstadtskom getu, Židov imenovan od nacista, bio heroj ili kolaboracionist, zločinac, kukavica?
Je li vrijedilo živjeti pod Rumkowskim šefovanjem i nadživjeti Židove iz drugih geta za čak dvije godine?
Pisano vrlo jednostavno, znaš kraj, ali te vuče da čitaš dalje.
Je li Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski šef u Litzmannstadtskom getu, Židov imenovan od nacista, bio heroj ili kolaboracionist, zločinac, kukavica?
Je li vrijedilo živjeti pod Rumkowskim šefovanjem i nadživjeti Židove iz drugih geta za čak dvije godine?
Pisano vrlo jednostavno, znaš kraj, ali te vuče da čitaš dalje.
September 21, 2016
I'm giving this 4 stars even though it was difficult to read. The subject was difficult - the story of the ghetto established by the Nazis in Lodz, Poland in 1940; more specifically, some of the inhabitants of that ghetto, mainly the Eldest Jew (leader of the Jewish community), Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski. He rules over a quarter million Jews for 4 1/2 years, striving to make himself and the ghetto indispensable to the Nazis, basically by doing what they told him to do. Was he a ruthless accessory to the regime, or was he a realist who saved some lives through collaboration? It was also a bit difficult for me stylistically; written more like nonfiction than a novel with a plot and a story line. Also, I speak neither German nor Polish, and there were times when I wished there had been more translation into English than there was. Yes, it's yet another Holocaust book and there are plenty of them out there. But it's an important subject and ultimately, despite its difficulty, this was well worth reading.
September 19, 2015
Wspaniała fiction-non-fiction, trudno się od niej oderwać, choć temat, którego dotyka tak odrażający (morbid). I angielski tytuł dopowiada wiele o tej książce: Emperor of Lies. Genialnie skomponowana fabuła, nawet zmyślone perypetie postaci docierają do głębi umysłu i jedyne to tęsknota, żeby dowiedzieć się co dalej z Adamem, Verą, dziećmi z sierocińca.
Ta lektura uzależnia od czytania!
Ta lektura uzależnia od czytania!
August 8, 2017
3,5 *
Un po' troppo lungo IMO, qualche taglio non avrebbe guastato. Serve leggerlo con molta attenzione, tornare indietro a volte per tirare le fila di parecchi personaggi abbandonati qui e là nella storia che rispuntano molte pagine dopo e non ci si ricorda dove erano stati lasciati. Di altri ci si chiede, a libro terminato, il destino anche se non è difficie da immaginare: "Dei 204.000 ebrei che passarono attraverso il ghetto di Łódź, solo 10.000 sopravvissero alla guerra." (wikipedia) A tratti la realtà narrativa si mescola al sogno, e capita di dirsi: ma non era morta? ahhh, sta sognando!
Molto bene documentato e molto credibile nell'invenzione narrativa. agghiaccianti la fame, il freddo, la perdita della dignità, la vita o la morte determinate dall'arbitrio di soldati violenti e ubriaconi, la paura che fa emergere il meglio o il peggio di ognuno; l'inutile speranza dell'arrivo dei russi: quando succederà sarà troppo tardi.
E alla fine, Rumkowski: santo o traditore? collaboratore dei nazisti o salvatore? Tutto il suo darsi da fare, per interessi personali o per prolungare di qualche mese la vita del ghetto? se finisce il ghetto muore anche lui, e lo sa. La persona risulta molto sgradevole: pedofilo, ambizioso, arrogante con i deboli e servile con i forti, ma avrebbe potuto fare altro? La storia non ha saputo prendere una posizione e io, alla fine, nemmeno. Da leggere, a mio avviso, la pagina di wikipedia dedicata al ghetto di Łódź: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_d... e scorrere la documentazione fotografica http://tinyurl.com/bedoxyk
Un po' troppo lungo IMO, qualche taglio non avrebbe guastato. Serve leggerlo con molta attenzione, tornare indietro a volte per tirare le fila di parecchi personaggi abbandonati qui e là nella storia che rispuntano molte pagine dopo e non ci si ricorda dove erano stati lasciati. Di altri ci si chiede, a libro terminato, il destino anche se non è difficie da immaginare: "Dei 204.000 ebrei che passarono attraverso il ghetto di Łódź, solo 10.000 sopravvissero alla guerra." (wikipedia) A tratti la realtà narrativa si mescola al sogno, e capita di dirsi: ma non era morta? ahhh, sta sognando!
Molto bene documentato e molto credibile nell'invenzione narrativa. agghiaccianti la fame, il freddo, la perdita della dignità, la vita o la morte determinate dall'arbitrio di soldati violenti e ubriaconi, la paura che fa emergere il meglio o il peggio di ognuno; l'inutile speranza dell'arrivo dei russi: quando succederà sarà troppo tardi.
E alla fine, Rumkowski: santo o traditore? collaboratore dei nazisti o salvatore? Tutto il suo darsi da fare, per interessi personali o per prolungare di qualche mese la vita del ghetto? se finisce il ghetto muore anche lui, e lo sa. La persona risulta molto sgradevole: pedofilo, ambizioso, arrogante con i deboli e servile con i forti, ma avrebbe potuto fare altro? La storia non ha saputo prendere una posizione e io, alla fine, nemmeno. Da leggere, a mio avviso, la pagina di wikipedia dedicata al ghetto di Łódź: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghetto_d... e scorrere la documentazione fotografica http://tinyurl.com/bedoxyk
November 21, 2024
"Императорът на лъжите" от Стив Сем-Сандберг
Една тежка, но важна книга за съдбата на едно еврейско гето. Едно гето, не по-различно от всички останали в рамките на Третия Райх, но това в Лодз си има Председател. Избран като пръв сред равни, той оплита собствения си народ в лъжи. Лъжи, които го тласкат към неизбежната пропаст. От безрезервно доверие през съмнение и гняв до безнадеждно примирение, евреите от гетото минават през целия унизителен цикъл от чувства към своя Председател. Истинското лице на войната, издълбано от глада, болката и мизерията на обитателите на гетото (освен някои привилегировани евреи от "елита"). Дали обаче Председателят няма сам да се оплете в собствената си мрежа от лъжи?
Препоръчвам книгата на любителите на исторически романи, които искат да погледнат под един по-непознат ъгъл Втората световна война и програмата за масово унищожение на евреите.
Една тежка, но важна книга за съдбата на едно еврейско гето. Едно гето, не по-различно от всички останали в рамките на Третия Райх, но това в Лодз си има Председател. Избран като пръв сред равни, той оплита собствения си народ в лъжи. Лъжи, които го тласкат към неизбежната пропаст. От безрезервно доверие през съмнение и гняв до безнадеждно примирение, евреите от гетото минават през целия унизителен цикъл от чувства към своя Председател. Истинското лице на войната, издълбано от глада, болката и мизерията на обитателите на гетото (освен някои привилегировани евреи от "елита"). Дали обаче Председателят няма сам да се оплете в собствената си мрежа от лъжи?
Препоръчвам книгата на любителите на исторически романи, които искат да погледнат под един по-непознат ъгъл Втората световна война и програмата за масово унищожение на евреите.
January 5, 2018
This chilling historical novel chronicles the tyrannical rule of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the autocratic, ruthless, Nazi-appointed Jewish rule of the Łódź Ghetto.
January 20, 2014
Mér finnst lífið of stutt til að klára bækur sem ég næ ekki sambandi við. En stundum verða þær bækur furðulega margar – í fyrra var hlutfallið skuggalega hátt. Svo ég ákvað að drösla mér í gegnum Öreigana í Łodz jafnvel þótt hún væri búin að missa á mér takið, ég búinn að missa á henni takið, þótt hún væri tæpar 600 blaðsíður.
Ég veit ekki hvað það er við helfararbókmenntir sem gerir þær svona óþolandi. Mér þótti það áður en ég skrifaði Illsku, vel að merkja, og var ein aðalástæðan fyrir því að ég ákvað að skrifa hana. Það er einsog höfundar geti leyft sér að drekkja bókunum í paþosi, bara fyrir það eitt að velja þetta söguefni. Vegna þess að helförin er svo óumdeilanlega skelfileg – það eru engin orð nógu stór til að lýsa henni, engin lýsing nógu paþoshlaðin til að ná utan um skelfinguna, og þar með eru ekki lengur nein takmörk fyrir tilfinningafylleríum höfunda. Eða, ég veit ekki hvernig ég get lýst því, það er eitthvað óþægilegt þarna – eitthvað nánast ofbeldisfullt gagnvart lesandanum. Nú velur maður alveg að lesa bækur um helförina og ætti kannski ekki að eiga von á öðru. En mér finnst það eigi að vera ólík kúnst að fjalla um eitthvað og að bara velta sér upp úr því. Ef helförin ætlar bara að vera sjálfri sér lík er kannski ástæða til að fjalla þá bara um allan hinn hryllinginn í heiminum sem við eigum eftir að kovera. Eða eitthvað fallegt. Blóm. Engi. Og falleg ungabörn.
Ég er auðvitað alltof grimmur við Sem-Sandberg hérna, þetta hefur líka með mig að gera. Og sambandsleysið. Ég hef kannski líka bara lesið of margar bækur um helförina. Það var náttúrulega vinnan mín á tímabili.
Eitt sem sló mig við lestur bókarinnar er tilfinning fyrir því sem við gætum kallað samræmingu mannkynssögunnar. Kenningin, sem ég þyrfti helst að sanna ef ég ætlaði að halda henni fram, og ég ætla samt að halda fram, er þá sú að eftir því sem lengra líður frá helförinni þeim mun meira líkist allar bækur sem um hana eru skrifaðar. Að mannkynssagan sé samræmd í alþýðuritum á borð við sögulegar skáldsögur – sem ættu kannski einmitt að sækja í hina áttina, reyna að flækja en ekki einfalda. Atburðirnir eru auðvitað í grófum atriðum þeir sömu hvort sem maður er í Łodz, Varsjá, Vilnius eða Jurbarkas – en stíllinn, gírinn, sá móður sem hugsað er í, verður alltaf fyrirsjáanlegri og fyrirsjáanlegri. Einhver líkti Sem-Sandberg við Dickens og mér finnst það ekkert fjarri lagi – ég hef enga þolinmæði fyrir Dickens heldur – og kannski er helförin einmitt að verða dickensískari með hverju árinu, meira einsog einhver epísk dæmisaga sem allir þekkja og er endurtekin bara vegna þess að maður endurtekur þannig sögur, af gömlum vana, af skyldurækni, svona einsog ríkisbubbi getur tárast yfir Oliver Twist og séð einhvern djúpstæðan móral í sögunni. Og kannski les fólk líka sögulegan horror af einhverri pervertískri nautn (hér er pervers notað meira sem lýsandi en dæmandi einkunn, ég hef ekkert á móti því sem er pervers, per se) og sér gildi í því út af fyrir sig. Einsog Egill myndi orða það: je ne sais pas.
Bækur Primo Levi um helförina eru einstakar. Þær eru ekki líkar neinum öðrum bókum um helförina. Kannski er stóri munurinn sá að bækur hans eru tilraun til þess að setja atburðina, og upplifun Primos Levi sjálfs, í samhengi við eitthvað annað. Eitthvað stærra. Nú, 70 árum síðar, er ekkert lengur stærra en helförin. Ekki einu sinni mennskan eða ómennskan. Og bannað að setja hana í samhengi við neitt annað.
Þýðing Ísak Harðarsonar er ágæt þótt á henni séu hnökrar (mér finnst til dæmis varla hægt að kalla skriðdreka stríðsvagna – þótt „stridsvagn“ sé sænska orðið – og orðið „utflykt“ (leiðangur/skoðunarferð) er á einum stað þýtt sem „útflutningur“) og yfirlesturinn á bókinni er alls ekki nógu góður (t.d. er á einum stað talað um Kung Chaim, upp á sænsku, en ekki Chaim kóng – á öðrum birtist alltíeinu orðið „industriutställning“ einsog það sé þýska, pólska eða jiddíska, en það er sænska). En textinn er almennt ágætur þrátt fyrir þessa hnökra.
Ég veit ekki hvað það er við helfararbókmenntir sem gerir þær svona óþolandi. Mér þótti það áður en ég skrifaði Illsku, vel að merkja, og var ein aðalástæðan fyrir því að ég ákvað að skrifa hana. Það er einsog höfundar geti leyft sér að drekkja bókunum í paþosi, bara fyrir það eitt að velja þetta söguefni. Vegna þess að helförin er svo óumdeilanlega skelfileg – það eru engin orð nógu stór til að lýsa henni, engin lýsing nógu paþoshlaðin til að ná utan um skelfinguna, og þar með eru ekki lengur nein takmörk fyrir tilfinningafylleríum höfunda. Eða, ég veit ekki hvernig ég get lýst því, það er eitthvað óþægilegt þarna – eitthvað nánast ofbeldisfullt gagnvart lesandanum. Nú velur maður alveg að lesa bækur um helförina og ætti kannski ekki að eiga von á öðru. En mér finnst það eigi að vera ólík kúnst að fjalla um eitthvað og að bara velta sér upp úr því. Ef helförin ætlar bara að vera sjálfri sér lík er kannski ástæða til að fjalla þá bara um allan hinn hryllinginn í heiminum sem við eigum eftir að kovera. Eða eitthvað fallegt. Blóm. Engi. Og falleg ungabörn.
Ég er auðvitað alltof grimmur við Sem-Sandberg hérna, þetta hefur líka með mig að gera. Og sambandsleysið. Ég hef kannski líka bara lesið of margar bækur um helförina. Það var náttúrulega vinnan mín á tímabili.
Eitt sem sló mig við lestur bókarinnar er tilfinning fyrir því sem við gætum kallað samræmingu mannkynssögunnar. Kenningin, sem ég þyrfti helst að sanna ef ég ætlaði að halda henni fram, og ég ætla samt að halda fram, er þá sú að eftir því sem lengra líður frá helförinni þeim mun meira líkist allar bækur sem um hana eru skrifaðar. Að mannkynssagan sé samræmd í alþýðuritum á borð við sögulegar skáldsögur – sem ættu kannski einmitt að sækja í hina áttina, reyna að flækja en ekki einfalda. Atburðirnir eru auðvitað í grófum atriðum þeir sömu hvort sem maður er í Łodz, Varsjá, Vilnius eða Jurbarkas – en stíllinn, gírinn, sá móður sem hugsað er í, verður alltaf fyrirsjáanlegri og fyrirsjáanlegri. Einhver líkti Sem-Sandberg við Dickens og mér finnst það ekkert fjarri lagi – ég hef enga þolinmæði fyrir Dickens heldur – og kannski er helförin einmitt að verða dickensískari með hverju árinu, meira einsog einhver epísk dæmisaga sem allir þekkja og er endurtekin bara vegna þess að maður endurtekur þannig sögur, af gömlum vana, af skyldurækni, svona einsog ríkisbubbi getur tárast yfir Oliver Twist og séð einhvern djúpstæðan móral í sögunni. Og kannski les fólk líka sögulegan horror af einhverri pervertískri nautn (hér er pervers notað meira sem lýsandi en dæmandi einkunn, ég hef ekkert á móti því sem er pervers, per se) og sér gildi í því út af fyrir sig. Einsog Egill myndi orða það: je ne sais pas.
Bækur Primo Levi um helförina eru einstakar. Þær eru ekki líkar neinum öðrum bókum um helförina. Kannski er stóri munurinn sá að bækur hans eru tilraun til þess að setja atburðina, og upplifun Primos Levi sjálfs, í samhengi við eitthvað annað. Eitthvað stærra. Nú, 70 árum síðar, er ekkert lengur stærra en helförin. Ekki einu sinni mennskan eða ómennskan. Og bannað að setja hana í samhengi við neitt annað.
Þýðing Ísak Harðarsonar er ágæt þótt á henni séu hnökrar (mér finnst til dæmis varla hægt að kalla skriðdreka stríðsvagna – þótt „stridsvagn“ sé sænska orðið – og orðið „utflykt“ (leiðangur/skoðunarferð) er á einum stað þýtt sem „útflutningur“) og yfirlesturinn á bókinni er alls ekki nógu góður (t.d. er á einum stað talað um Kung Chaim, upp á sænsku, en ekki Chaim kóng – á öðrum birtist alltíeinu orðið „industriutställning“ einsog það sé þýska, pólska eða jiddíska, en það er sænska). En textinn er almennt ágætur þrátt fyrir þessa hnökra.
August 20, 2016
Tositapahtumiin perustuva romaani puolalaisesta getosta toisen maailmansodan aikaan. Pääosassa on geton juutalainen puhemies, joka oli ehkä sankari, ehkä vain vallanhimoinen pelkuri. Geton elämää ja vaiheita kuvaillaan yksityiskohtaisesti.
Kirja on raaka, synkkä ja valoton, mutta myös hyvin vaikuttava ja ajatuksia herättävä. Tiivistäminen ja tyylillinen selkeyttäminen olisivat olleet joissain kohdin paikallaan. Loppua kohden teos vain paranee ja ryhdistyy.
Yleensä olen nopea lukija, mutta tämän kanssa meni viikkoja. Pelkkä runsas sivumäärä ei tätä selitä, vaan kyse on myös siitä etten kestänyt julmuutta ja toivottomuutta kovin paljon kerralla. Olen kuitenkin iloinen että en luovuttanut. Etenkin näinä aikoina on tarpeellista pysähtyä muistamaan holokaustin pohjaton hirveys.
Kirja on raaka, synkkä ja valoton, mutta myös hyvin vaikuttava ja ajatuksia herättävä. Tiivistäminen ja tyylillinen selkeyttäminen olisivat olleet joissain kohdin paikallaan. Loppua kohden teos vain paranee ja ryhdistyy.
Yleensä olen nopea lukija, mutta tämän kanssa meni viikkoja. Pelkkä runsas sivumäärä ei tätä selitä, vaan kyse on myös siitä etten kestänyt julmuutta ja toivottomuutta kovin paljon kerralla. Olen kuitenkin iloinen että en luovuttanut. Etenkin näinä aikoina on tarpeellista pysähtyä muistamaan holokaustin pohjaton hirveys.
October 22, 2021
2.5. I was really excited to read this book. The story of the Lodz ghetto and Rumkowski is a fascinating tale, but I just....had a lot of trouble with this book. Partly because I found it confusing. It was supposed to be a novel, but yet read as non-fiction, but also didn't. And I honestly didn't understand what was happening at times. Maybe BECAUSE it was supposed to be a novel and so the language was more important than laying down sequences of events, but I struggled in many places trying to figure out what happened to certain people and certain situations.
There was just something off about this book for me and I felt like it did not give the subject (and there really is so much to unpack here) it's due. Obviously many MANY people disagree with me on that.
There was just something off about this book for me and I felt like it did not give the subject (and there really is so much to unpack here) it's due. Obviously many MANY people disagree with me on that.
December 15, 2020
Ne pats geriausias laikas (Covid pandemija, sunkus darbas ir nerimas dėl savęs ir artimųjų) skaityti tokias knygas, kuriose aprašomas žydų genocido siaubas. Vėl kyla klausimas, kaip iš žmonių tarpo atsiranda išgamos, galinčios nukryžiuoti seną rabiną, pasmeigti kūdikį ant durtuvo, išplėšti vaikus iš tėvų glėbio ir išvežti nužudyti. Knygoje pasakojama Lodzės geto istorija ir pristatomas jo pirmininkas žydas Mordechajus Chaimas Rumkovskis,įkūręs verslo imperiją, išnaudojęs savo tautiečius, bet kartu ir sudarydamas sąlygas jiems tiesiog išgyventi. Atsakymo nėra, tokia tai dviprasmiška asmenybė.
Want to read
September 10, 2011{Advertised NYRB 9-29-2011: "In February 1940, the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz. The leader they appointed was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director. The Emperor of Lies--a sensation throughout Europe--is the tale of Rumkowski's monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for four and a half years."
Farrar Straus Giroux
Farrar Straus Giroux
August 24, 2012
Translated from the Swedish, this is a harrowing depiction of Chaim Rumkowski and his control of the Lodz ghetto and attempt to turn it into a Jewish 'state'....think of words such as 'harrowing', 'cruel', 'evil' and times them by 10.....the characters are almost Dickensian in their portrayal and the story leaves you bereft....Rumkowski the monstrous dictator, and yet, if the war has ended a few months / a year later...how would he have been perceived then.....?
August 3, 2020
Reálné postavy, reálné příběhy a pečlivě nastudované prameny promíchané se surreálnými obrazy chaosu i řádu lodžského ghetta. Tohle není moc příjemné ani jednoduché čtení. Sem-Sandberg rozehrává spousty témat. Od ekonomiky ghetta, přes strategie přežití až po život v (sebe)klamu. Román má i českou linku a nabízí i zajímavý pohled na interpretaci činů předsedů židovských rad Mordechaje Chaim Rumkowski (Lodž) a Jakoba Edelsteina (Terezín)
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