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The List
Winner of a Jewish National Book Award for his previous book, Walking Israel, NBC Special Correspondent Martin Fletcher uses meticulous research and his own family’s history in this stunning novel. Dramatizing explosive events in London and Palestine in the years directly following World War II, The List follows the lives of Edith and Georg, Austrian refugees who are expecting their first baby in a world unfriendly to Jews. Anti-Semitism sweeps across the streets of London even as the world learns of the atrocities of the Holocaust. As Edith and Georg desperately search for surviving family members, they struggle to stay afloat in a world riddled with terrorism, assassination attempts, and fear.
840 pages, Audio CD
First published October 11, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews
June 13, 2012
In the 1990's I lived with Fletcher's parents as a student in London and this is their story - Austrian jewish immigrants struggling to fit in and make a life in wartime London. London neither fully rejected or embraced the Jews that arrived in the 1930's but some people (like Edith Fleischer/Fletcher) never stopped trying to be a good neighbor, a good citizen, or a good Jew (all at the same time). The book is set in the boarding house that became their home -- and the home I lived in. I almost felt I could see their movements in that old house on Goldhurst Terrace.
August 16, 2013
I disagree with those reviewers who think this novel is poorly written. While the style is rather dry and journalistic in places, I think the style is well-suited to the subject matter which, according to the author himself, is a fictionalized account of his own parents' struggle to survive and then rebuild their lives as refugees in London following the holocaust. The author skillfully weaves together two story lines which gradually converge, adding an element of suspense to the novel. The two story lines meet when George, who is unwittingly dragged into the activities of a Jewish terrorist organization, is forced to choose between his loyalty to his own people and his gratitude to the British people who offered his family safe haven during the war.
Regarding the supposed anti-Semitism encountered by the Jewish refugees in London, the author fairly depicts both sides of the issue. The British desire to 'send the refugees home' is not so much a matter of prejudice as a wish to be fair to their own returning soldiers who are sorely in need of jobs and housing.
I do think the scene depicting the birth of Edith's baby was a bit overdone. The author devotes the better part of an entire chapter describing every detail of Edith's ten-hour labor and delivery, right down to the number of centimeters her cervix is dilated and the appearance of the bloody afterbirth after the delivery. At one point during this chapter I found myself wondering if Martin Fletcher hadn't missed his true calling in life and should have been an ob-gyn. The author would have been better served, I think, to use those pages near the end of the novel to tell us more about Anna, Israel, and Edith's father Papi.
Despite these flaws, this is still an exciting and worthwhile read from both the historical and literary perspectives. The author does a great job of depicting the horrors of the holocaust and its aftermath without going into too much gory detail about the suffering of the victims in the concentration camps.
Regarding the supposed anti-Semitism encountered by the Jewish refugees in London, the author fairly depicts both sides of the issue. The British desire to 'send the refugees home' is not so much a matter of prejudice as a wish to be fair to their own returning soldiers who are sorely in need of jobs and housing.
I do think the scene depicting the birth of Edith's baby was a bit overdone. The author devotes the better part of an entire chapter describing every detail of Edith's ten-hour labor and delivery, right down to the number of centimeters her cervix is dilated and the appearance of the bloody afterbirth after the delivery. At one point during this chapter I found myself wondering if Martin Fletcher hadn't missed his true calling in life and should have been an ob-gyn. The author would have been better served, I think, to use those pages near the end of the novel to tell us more about Anna, Israel, and Edith's father Papi.
Despite these flaws, this is still an exciting and worthwhile read from both the historical and literary perspectives. The author does a great job of depicting the horrors of the holocaust and its aftermath without going into too much gory detail about the suffering of the victims in the concentration camps.
April 13, 2012
This novel sounded so intriguing in the blurb, but it was such a disappointment to read. There are two story lines. First there are Georg and Edith, Austrian refugees living in London and expecting their first child. The other story line doesn't focus on one person, but several Jewish operatives in Palestine trying to harass the British into allowing more Jews into the territory while also taking revenge for comrades lost to the cause. These two story lines don't come together until the last quarter of the story.
This story had a lot of potential, but Martin Fletcher, an award-winning news correspondent, did not successfully make the transition from journalist to writer. Far too often in both story lines Fletcher awkwardly inserts history lessons and news reports into dialogue, letters, and the narrative itself. While the information is interesting, it feels contrived when a character describes a concentration camp in a page-long flashback or when Jewish operatives read British military reports to each other and discuss the political context of them.
Especially in Georg and Edith's story, these information dumps badly mask the fact that most of the action is taking place 'off stage.' Other than the scenes in which Londoners campaign to have the Jews sent back to their country of origin, Georg and Edith spend much of their time sitting around wondering what happened to their family members and worrying about the baby.
I wish Fletcher had focused only on Georg and Edith's story. All the rest could have been cut out, perhaps for another novel, and what would be left would have been a poignant story about young refugee couple trying to cope in a city that doesn't want them.
This story had a lot of potential, but Martin Fletcher, an award-winning news correspondent, did not successfully make the transition from journalist to writer. Far too often in both story lines Fletcher awkwardly inserts history lessons and news reports into dialogue, letters, and the narrative itself. While the information is interesting, it feels contrived when a character describes a concentration camp in a page-long flashback or when Jewish operatives read British military reports to each other and discuss the political context of them.
Especially in Georg and Edith's story, these information dumps badly mask the fact that most of the action is taking place 'off stage.' Other than the scenes in which Londoners campaign to have the Jews sent back to their country of origin, Georg and Edith spend much of their time sitting around wondering what happened to their family members and worrying about the baby.
I wish Fletcher had focused only on Georg and Edith's story. All the rest could have been cut out, perhaps for another novel, and what would be left would have been a poignant story about young refugee couple trying to cope in a city that doesn't want them.
February 6, 2012
I might have even rated this with another half of a star!
Martin Fletcher's focus here is on Austrian refugees Georg and his pregnant wife Edith in London in 1945. While struggling to rebuild their lives and hoping to learn of other family members who may have survived the Holocaust, they face blatant anti-semitism from Englishmen, many of whom would like to eject the immigrant Jews in favor of returning British servicemen in need of homes and jobs. Other characters of note are Edith's cousin Anna, damaged, vulnerable, and unable to speak of the horrors she endured in Auschwitz; and Ismael, an Egyptian Arab, who falls in love with Anna, and who is not really who we're led to believe he is initially. We learn of the Zionist underground movement of Jewish freedom fighters (considered terrorists by the British) who plot to assassinate the British Prime Minister, to sabotage the British, to force them to open Palestine's border to all Jews who wish to enter in this period just prior to the establishment of the state of Israel.
I had known some British history of this time period from other readings, including Anita Diamant's "Day After Night," about the British internment camp near Haifa that held "illegal" Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to enter Palestine; and I learned more still on a recent trip to Israel. This is a poignant historical story, one that has often been forgotten after WWII, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Martin Fletcher's focus here is on Austrian refugees Georg and his pregnant wife Edith in London in 1945. While struggling to rebuild their lives and hoping to learn of other family members who may have survived the Holocaust, they face blatant anti-semitism from Englishmen, many of whom would like to eject the immigrant Jews in favor of returning British servicemen in need of homes and jobs. Other characters of note are Edith's cousin Anna, damaged, vulnerable, and unable to speak of the horrors she endured in Auschwitz; and Ismael, an Egyptian Arab, who falls in love with Anna, and who is not really who we're led to believe he is initially. We learn of the Zionist underground movement of Jewish freedom fighters (considered terrorists by the British) who plot to assassinate the British Prime Minister, to sabotage the British, to force them to open Palestine's border to all Jews who wish to enter in this period just prior to the establishment of the state of Israel.
I had known some British history of this time period from other readings, including Anita Diamant's "Day After Night," about the British internment camp near Haifa that held "illegal" Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to enter Palestine; and I learned more still on a recent trip to Israel. This is a poignant historical story, one that has often been forgotten after WWII, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
September 28, 2023
A SUSPENSEFUL TALE OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS IN POST-WAR LONDON
One of the lessons I learned very early in my three-decade-long career writing and editing fundraising appeals was that statistics numb the brain while a gripping tale of one individual can unlock torrents of emotion in the reader. So it was no surprise to me that the story of one young refugee Jewish family in London in 1945 could bring home the chilling reality of the Holocaust more powerfully than any recitation of the numbers of Hitler’s victims could ever possibly do. And that’s what you’ll find in The List, a haunting novel about Holocaust survivors.
FROM THE DEATH CAMPS TO ENGLAND AND PALESTINE
The author of The List is Martin Fletcher, an NBC foreign correspondent who is the son of an Austrian refugee couple named Edith and Georg. He borrows their names for his protagonists in a fictional tale of a small group of Holocaust survivors scratching out a living in a boardinghouse in post-war London amid the violent conflict over Britain’s pro-Arab policy toward Palestine.
The story unfolds in London beginning on May 8, 1945—V-E Day (“Victory in Europe,” should you be too young to know)—and concludes in the days before Christmas that same fateful year. The narrator’s focus shifts to Palestine from time to time. There, we observe the increasingly desperate struggle between the three leading groups of the Zionist insurgency (Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi) and the British occupation forces. The two threads of the tale converge, as they tend to do in novels, bringing home to the apolitical refugees in peacetime England some of the grim choices facing Jews in what is to become, within three years, the Israeli homeland.
A SHRINKING LIST OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS
The “list” of the title is Georg’s long, handwritten list of his family members. One by one, he crosses out their names as news emerges of their deaths from the chaos of the DP (displaced persons) camps on the Continent. This homely but powerful metaphor for what we all lost in the Holocaust reawakened childhood memories of my New York cousins sitting me down as a teenager to tell me about the lives of my own relatives who perished in the death camps.
Fletcher’s grim but fascinating novel about Holocaust survivors centers around two central events drawn from history. One is an anti-Semitic petition movement to expel Jewish refugees from the London borough of Hampstead. Fascists recently released from wartime prisons led the movement. The other is the attempted assassination of Aneurin Bevin, the Foreign Minister in the Labour Government that came to power in Britain following Winston Churchill’s rejection at the polls.
The List is a searing tale, beautifully told, brimming over with suspense that drives the reader forward to the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Fletcher writes on his author website that “I began thinking of my first book in 1977, started research in the mid-80’s, wrote it in 1988, rewrote it in 1994, rewrote it in 2007, and Breaking News was published in 2008. Luckily I was employed throughout by NBC News, which enabled me to raise a family in less time than it took to write the book. . . [I’ve] been covering world events for thirty-five years, mostly for NBC News. For twenty-six years [I] was NBC correspondent in Israel and for fifteen, bureau chief as well. [I have] won almost every award in TV journalism, including the du Pont, known as the TV Pulitzer, five Overseas Press Club awards, [and] the Edward R. Murrow Award.”
Wikipedia notes that Fletcher was born in London, England, in 1947 and graduated from the University of Bradford in 1970. He is the author of two books of nonfiction and four novels. It’s evident from these facts that Georg and Edith were, in fact, Holocaust survivors.
One of the lessons I learned very early in my three-decade-long career writing and editing fundraising appeals was that statistics numb the brain while a gripping tale of one individual can unlock torrents of emotion in the reader. So it was no surprise to me that the story of one young refugee Jewish family in London in 1945 could bring home the chilling reality of the Holocaust more powerfully than any recitation of the numbers of Hitler’s victims could ever possibly do. And that’s what you’ll find in The List, a haunting novel about Holocaust survivors.
FROM THE DEATH CAMPS TO ENGLAND AND PALESTINE
The author of The List is Martin Fletcher, an NBC foreign correspondent who is the son of an Austrian refugee couple named Edith and Georg. He borrows their names for his protagonists in a fictional tale of a small group of Holocaust survivors scratching out a living in a boardinghouse in post-war London amid the violent conflict over Britain’s pro-Arab policy toward Palestine.
The story unfolds in London beginning on May 8, 1945—V-E Day (“Victory in Europe,” should you be too young to know)—and concludes in the days before Christmas that same fateful year. The narrator’s focus shifts to Palestine from time to time. There, we observe the increasingly desperate struggle between the three leading groups of the Zionist insurgency (Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi) and the British occupation forces. The two threads of the tale converge, as they tend to do in novels, bringing home to the apolitical refugees in peacetime England some of the grim choices facing Jews in what is to become, within three years, the Israeli homeland.
A SHRINKING LIST OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS
The “list” of the title is Georg’s long, handwritten list of his family members. One by one, he crosses out their names as news emerges of their deaths from the chaos of the DP (displaced persons) camps on the Continent. This homely but powerful metaphor for what we all lost in the Holocaust reawakened childhood memories of my New York cousins sitting me down as a teenager to tell me about the lives of my own relatives who perished in the death camps.
Fletcher’s grim but fascinating novel about Holocaust survivors centers around two central events drawn from history. One is an anti-Semitic petition movement to expel Jewish refugees from the London borough of Hampstead. Fascists recently released from wartime prisons led the movement. The other is the attempted assassination of Aneurin Bevin, the Foreign Minister in the Labour Government that came to power in Britain following Winston Churchill’s rejection at the polls.
The List is a searing tale, beautifully told, brimming over with suspense that drives the reader forward to the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Fletcher writes on his author website that “I began thinking of my first book in 1977, started research in the mid-80’s, wrote it in 1988, rewrote it in 1994, rewrote it in 2007, and Breaking News was published in 2008. Luckily I was employed throughout by NBC News, which enabled me to raise a family in less time than it took to write the book. . . [I’ve] been covering world events for thirty-five years, mostly for NBC News. For twenty-six years [I] was NBC correspondent in Israel and for fifteen, bureau chief as well. [I have] won almost every award in TV journalism, including the du Pont, known as the TV Pulitzer, five Overseas Press Club awards, [and] the Edward R. Murrow Award.”
Wikipedia notes that Fletcher was born in London, England, in 1947 and graduated from the University of Bradford in 1970. He is the author of two books of nonfiction and four novels. It’s evident from these facts that Georg and Edith were, in fact, Holocaust survivors.
January 18, 2012
Anti-semitism, overt, blatant and frightening, did not die when the death camps were liberated towards the end of World War II. Yet, so often, mass market fiction closes the curtain with the arrival of liberating troops and the end of the war. "The List", Martin Fletcher's first novel, bravely attempts to fill this void. Here is the tale of some of the lucky ones, who either escaped to Britain just before the outbreak of the war, or who survived the camps and are regrouping in London. The story unfolds largely through the eyes of Edith and Georg, Austrian Jews eking out an existence in Hampstead, yearning for news of relatives, even if it is bad. Their lives are on hold, even with their first child on the way, until they know the whole truth about the devastation of their families.
Even as they try to adapt to their new reality and find roles for themselves in Britain or elsewhere, the struggle continues. Resurgent anti-Semitism and fascism in post-war Britain threatens their chance to rebuild. Many in Britain want to expel refugee Jews, but where are they to go? Immigration limits in the US are tight, sending them back to their former homes is absurd -- Jews still on the continent are looking to escape the devastation of the war and the thought of living in proximity to the very neighbors that participated in murdering them is repulsive. Palestine offers hope, but there too the British are thwarting expansion of Jewish immigration and nation building -- sparking a violent response that serves to exacerbate the anti-Jewish feeling back home. It's a powerful story and one that needs to be better known. Fletcher's journalistic roots come to the fore in laying out the cross-currents of belief efficiently and with a more even hand than you might expect.
At moments, Fletcher is able to bring life to his characters' quests for knowledge and reconciliation with the horror of what they know and cannot ever really understand. These moments are sadly surrounded by a book that is often woodenly written and a creaky plot that too much wind up to get going. Minor characters are introduced for a few meager pages and then whisked offstage by death. It's all too easy to know what one character did to survive in the camps, though much is made of her not being able to tell her cousin and husband. Another character is obviously not what or whom he seems to be. These flaws were annoying and detract from a powerful story that forces the reader to confront a major omission in the fictional version of modern history that has been engraved in the hearts and minds of those of us born well after the tragedies of the first half of the 20th century. Fletcher clearly has it in him to find a great story, he simply needs to practice putting it into the form of a novel.
Even as they try to adapt to their new reality and find roles for themselves in Britain or elsewhere, the struggle continues. Resurgent anti-Semitism and fascism in post-war Britain threatens their chance to rebuild. Many in Britain want to expel refugee Jews, but where are they to go? Immigration limits in the US are tight, sending them back to their former homes is absurd -- Jews still on the continent are looking to escape the devastation of the war and the thought of living in proximity to the very neighbors that participated in murdering them is repulsive. Palestine offers hope, but there too the British are thwarting expansion of Jewish immigration and nation building -- sparking a violent response that serves to exacerbate the anti-Jewish feeling back home. It's a powerful story and one that needs to be better known. Fletcher's journalistic roots come to the fore in laying out the cross-currents of belief efficiently and with a more even hand than you might expect.
At moments, Fletcher is able to bring life to his characters' quests for knowledge and reconciliation with the horror of what they know and cannot ever really understand. These moments are sadly surrounded by a book that is often woodenly written and a creaky plot that too much wind up to get going. Minor characters are introduced for a few meager pages and then whisked offstage by death. It's all too easy to know what one character did to survive in the camps, though much is made of her not being able to tell her cousin and husband. Another character is obviously not what or whom he seems to be. These flaws were annoying and detract from a powerful story that forces the reader to confront a major omission in the fictional version of modern history that has been engraved in the hearts and minds of those of us born well after the tragedies of the first half of the 20th century. Fletcher clearly has it in him to find a great story, he simply needs to practice putting it into the form of a novel.
June 16, 2020
Martin Fletcher, who is a correspondent for NBC, has written a novel, "The List", which may - or may not - contain elements of his own family's story. He uses the true names of his parents, Georg and Edith, who escaped from Czechoslovakia to London before the beginning of the WW2. They were originally Viennese Jews, and found refuge in the Hampstead area of London. They were married in the early 1940's and eked out a tenuous existence during the war. After suffering one still-birth, when the novel opens in summer of 1945, Edith is pregnant for the second time and news is coming in from the former Nazi-occupied countries about who survived and who didn't.
"The List" is set in both London and Tel Aviv, and the political realities of the British control of Palestine, with all the Jewish refugees who want to settle there, is well-told. In London, after the war, some Britons are chafing at the continuing presence of Jewish refugees, who had settled there before the war. "The war is over", people were saying, "send the Jews back to where they came from". Often, though, "where they came from" no longer existed, due to the war, and the Jews who had left, either by choice of emigration or force of Nazi rule, were usually not welcomed back to their homes and property. Mini pogroms, particularly in Poland, were common after the German surrender and killed many Polish Jews who had survived the horrors of the war, only to be killed when they returned "home".
Edith and Georg, who live in a rooming house in Hampstead with other Jewish refugees, are keeping lists - one each for them - of their relatives who remained in Europe and were caught up in the Holocaust. Names and knowledge were in short supply as many of those who survived the ghettos and the camps, were basically roaming around Europe. Both Georg and Edith knew they had lost most of their family members, though the fate of a few remained unknowable.
The problem with "The List", is that it seems neither fact nor fiction. Martin Fletcher acknowledges to the reader that, while he uses his parents' names, the story is not about them...exactly. There's a bit of a "remove" for the reader who wonders what is true and what isn't true about the story. Perhaps it would have been better for Fletcher to either write a true story of his parents and their lives in England during and after the war, OR, write complete fiction, not using anybody's real name. I vote for the first - the idea of the memoir about his parents, but then again, I like non-fiction a little better than fiction. The story that Martin Fletcher tells, though, is interesting and worth reading, for the pictures of post-war life in London and Palestine.
"The List" is set in both London and Tel Aviv, and the political realities of the British control of Palestine, with all the Jewish refugees who want to settle there, is well-told. In London, after the war, some Britons are chafing at the continuing presence of Jewish refugees, who had settled there before the war. "The war is over", people were saying, "send the Jews back to where they came from". Often, though, "where they came from" no longer existed, due to the war, and the Jews who had left, either by choice of emigration or force of Nazi rule, were usually not welcomed back to their homes and property. Mini pogroms, particularly in Poland, were common after the German surrender and killed many Polish Jews who had survived the horrors of the war, only to be killed when they returned "home".
Edith and Georg, who live in a rooming house in Hampstead with other Jewish refugees, are keeping lists - one each for them - of their relatives who remained in Europe and were caught up in the Holocaust. Names and knowledge were in short supply as many of those who survived the ghettos and the camps, were basically roaming around Europe. Both Georg and Edith knew they had lost most of their family members, though the fate of a few remained unknowable.
The problem with "The List", is that it seems neither fact nor fiction. Martin Fletcher acknowledges to the reader that, while he uses his parents' names, the story is not about them...exactly. There's a bit of a "remove" for the reader who wonders what is true and what isn't true about the story. Perhaps it would have been better for Fletcher to either write a true story of his parents and their lives in England during and after the war, OR, write complete fiction, not using anybody's real name. I vote for the first - the idea of the memoir about his parents, but then again, I like non-fiction a little better than fiction. The story that Martin Fletcher tells, though, is interesting and worth reading, for the pictures of post-war life in London and Palestine.
January 25, 2012
Some completely different perspectives on post-WW-II England. It also spoke to the desires of many former Poles, Hungarians, Italians, Austrians and Germans who discovered their Jewish identity was paramount in being marked for life or death. There is no home to return to. This is the most wrenching account of the moral dilemmas involving so many in the formation of post-war Europe, especially Jews who want to immigrate now to Palestine and form a new Jewish nation in the ancient land of Canaan.
Characters are memorably drawn and the plot swings from joys to sorrows, back and forth. "The List" is a list kept by Georg Fleisher of missing family for himself and wife, Edith. So very many are dead, one confirmation at a time. The mourning of family and friends is pervasive. In a recent discussion of this book with a Jewish "boomers" book group, one person said they knew of a family member who also had kept a list - over 400 extended and immediate family members, of whom only 4 persons survived the Nazi death camps and marches.
All the political speeches of the time, cited by the author were actually real, recorded in Parliament. I think this is an important book about the Holocaust and the radicalization of Zionists in establishing Israel. Mr. Fletcher has more stories to tell us.
Characters are memorably drawn and the plot swings from joys to sorrows, back and forth. "The List" is a list kept by Georg Fleisher of missing family for himself and wife, Edith. So very many are dead, one confirmation at a time. The mourning of family and friends is pervasive. In a recent discussion of this book with a Jewish "boomers" book group, one person said they knew of a family member who also had kept a list - over 400 extended and immediate family members, of whom only 4 persons survived the Nazi death camps and marches.
All the political speeches of the time, cited by the author were actually real, recorded in Parliament. I think this is an important book about the Holocaust and the radicalization of Zionists in establishing Israel. Mr. Fletcher has more stories to tell us.
November 28, 2011
A wonderfully written book about a little known incident between Palestine and England. Alternately sad as Edith and Georg who are living in England attempt to find family members who have lived through the Holocaust, crossing names off a list as they find most of their families are dead, and yet hopeful at times. A pregnant Edith is reunited with her cousin and learns that her papi survived the war and it is this thought that sustains her. What I didn't know is how much prejudice the survivors encountered after the war and that England threatened to deport all the Jewish people in their kingdom to Palestine or other places. Very informative.
April 13, 2019
Beautiful story showing the resilience of the human spirit. Beginning in 1945 on V-E Day in London, Edith and Georg and their friends are Austrian refugees who are doing what they can to make ends meet and make a new life for themselves and their soon to arrive baby. The end of the war brings new problems, with severe housing shortages and lack of available jobs for everyone but especially for the men who are beginning to return to civilian life. This leads to rising tension, including feelings of antisemitism and a number of fascist groups wanting to send all refugees back where they came from. Edith and Georg's group of friends live in a boarding house owned by a caring English couple whose only son is still in the Army and stationed in Palestine, an increasingly dangerous and troubled area. Amidst all the turmoil, there is still love and human kindness to be found. Each refugee seems to have a list of names of relatives....people they have lost touch with and are trying to reconnect with, if anyone has survived. Most names are crossed off the list as names of the dead come from various relief agencies.
Somehow this book manages to be hopeful and uplifting rather than depressing! The characters are wonderful, and the author does a brilliant job of bringing them to life and also making it possible for the reader to understand them and their motivations, even though you might not agree or approve. It provides an excellent picture of how people tried to move on after the war.
Somehow this book manages to be hopeful and uplifting rather than depressing! The characters are wonderful, and the author does a brilliant job of bringing them to life and also making it possible for the reader to understand them and their motivations, even though you might not agree or approve. It provides an excellent picture of how people tried to move on after the war.
August 28, 2012
The List is a novel based on a true story about a young, Jewish Austrian couple fortunate to become refugees in London while most of their friends and family perished in the holocaust. Simultaneously the book brings in the early tactics of the Stern gang to take out Bevin during the Mandate of Palestine. While I was well aware of the period of the Mandate, I was not aware of how the refugees struggled for acceptance in England. Still, the Brits came through and the refugees remained to become British citizens. This book was not only informative and touching, but pulls you into the lives of Edith and George on such a personal level that when it’s over you feel as though you’ve said goodbye to some very dear friends. You might even want to read it again, just to say hello, how are you, and what’s new? How I wish PBS would run a series about Edith, George, their landlords and friends. Thanks to Martin Fletcher for a wonderful story.
February 18, 2013
I too am the son of a Holocaust survivor. My father, who made it to the U.S., didn't have to face nearly the overt anti-Semitic backlash Martin Fletcher's parents did, but he was never able to divorce himself from the continuum of insane hatred he faced in Germany or subtler but no-less-damaging forms he faced his life here. Whatever he felt about not being accepted as fully human in some circles was transmitted to me as I grew up and faced some of it in my own right. The List brought it all back in one great cauldron of remembrance. It's probably a disservice to Fletcher in his role as fiction writer, but I tended to read past what I perceived as filler in order to experience the transfixing multiple insults and ignorance his parents--real or fictional--faced.
July 2, 2021
I finished Martin Fletcher’s “The List” in just a few sittings, the last of which ended at three in the morning. To use the old cliche, I just couldn’t put the book down.
Yet though the novel kept me turning pages until the wee hours, for me the plot of “The List”
was most definitely not the thing. I found the book memorable because of the accuracy and exquisite sensitivity with which it evokes the experience of Jewish refugees from Hitler in London during and immediately after the Second World War.
That’s something I know a little about since, like Fletcher’s parents, my own mother and father fled Nazi Vienna for London in 1939. The novel’s description of the experiences and feelings of its characters, Georg and Edith, often movingly echoed things my parents had told me.
The “list” of the book’s title is one Georg and Edith have made of parents, siblings and other relatives who were unable to get out of Austria and whose prospects of survival seem bleak as news emerges of the horrific totality of the Nazis’ war against the Jews. They and their fellow refugees check the lists of survivors as soon as they become available and desperately seek any other scrap of information. One name after the other is crossed off the list as it is confirmed that the person did not survive.
But then a letter arrives from an Auschwitz survivor who knew Edith’s father at the time of the camp’s liberation. This creates new hope that he may still be alive; but if he is, why hasn’t he tried to contact Edith, whom he knew was in London? As they deal with the awful anxiety of not knowing, Georg and Edith must also contend with the shock of having been suddenly torn from home and the difficult adjustment to a new culture and language. On top of that, nativist and fascist groups have found new strength after the end of the war, and are agitating for Britain to force refugees to go “home.”
The other plot line unfolds in Palestine, where Britain, the governing power, is still severely restricting the number of Jews allowed to enter. Seeking to force the British to quit Palestine, a Jewish terrorist group plots the assassination of the pro-Arab foreign minister, Ernest Bevin. Georg inadvertently learns of the plot and must figure out a way to stop it, without betraying a friend whom he learns is involved.
Although the convergence of the two plot lines through Georg stretches credulity a bit, it was just plausible enough to work. The Lehi (better known as the Stern Gang) did in fact manage to assassinate Lord Moyne, a high British official, in Cairo. And in recent years it’s been revealed that Lehi also plotted to assassinate Bevin, but never attempted to carry it out.
The history presented in a historical novel should be accurate, and “The List” does well on this score, as well as vividly portraying the atmosphere of the times.
Because this book almost seemed to be written personally for me, I’m a bit hampered in assessing the likely reaction of general readers. But I can say with confidence that anyone with a background similar to mine, or a particular interest in the Holocaust, will find it immensely absorbing and moving.
Yet though the novel kept me turning pages until the wee hours, for me the plot of “The List”
was most definitely not the thing. I found the book memorable because of the accuracy and exquisite sensitivity with which it evokes the experience of Jewish refugees from Hitler in London during and immediately after the Second World War.
That’s something I know a little about since, like Fletcher’s parents, my own mother and father fled Nazi Vienna for London in 1939. The novel’s description of the experiences and feelings of its characters, Georg and Edith, often movingly echoed things my parents had told me.
The “list” of the book’s title is one Georg and Edith have made of parents, siblings and other relatives who were unable to get out of Austria and whose prospects of survival seem bleak as news emerges of the horrific totality of the Nazis’ war against the Jews. They and their fellow refugees check the lists of survivors as soon as they become available and desperately seek any other scrap of information. One name after the other is crossed off the list as it is confirmed that the person did not survive.
But then a letter arrives from an Auschwitz survivor who knew Edith’s father at the time of the camp’s liberation. This creates new hope that he may still be alive; but if he is, why hasn’t he tried to contact Edith, whom he knew was in London? As they deal with the awful anxiety of not knowing, Georg and Edith must also contend with the shock of having been suddenly torn from home and the difficult adjustment to a new culture and language. On top of that, nativist and fascist groups have found new strength after the end of the war, and are agitating for Britain to force refugees to go “home.”
The other plot line unfolds in Palestine, where Britain, the governing power, is still severely restricting the number of Jews allowed to enter. Seeking to force the British to quit Palestine, a Jewish terrorist group plots the assassination of the pro-Arab foreign minister, Ernest Bevin. Georg inadvertently learns of the plot and must figure out a way to stop it, without betraying a friend whom he learns is involved.
Although the convergence of the two plot lines through Georg stretches credulity a bit, it was just plausible enough to work. The Lehi (better known as the Stern Gang) did in fact manage to assassinate Lord Moyne, a high British official, in Cairo. And in recent years it’s been revealed that Lehi also plotted to assassinate Bevin, but never attempted to carry it out.
The history presented in a historical novel should be accurate, and “The List” does well on this score, as well as vividly portraying the atmosphere of the times.
Because this book almost seemed to be written personally for me, I’m a bit hampered in assessing the likely reaction of general readers. But I can say with confidence that anyone with a background similar to mine, or a particular interest in the Holocaust, will find it immensely absorbing and moving.
November 10, 2018
Great book, interesting story about post war treatment of refugees
September 24, 2024
I love historical fiction. This was a poor example of that genre.
Quite possibly the most boring, droning audiobook I have struggled through. Narration didn't help.
Positive points are the historical facts and events, and how people lived through those, obviously. The POV is one I hadn't delved into to this deep a level.
Other than that, I hated this book. The wholly unnecessary details, mostly focused on the mundane, unfortunately stole what I felt couldve been layers of depth from the characters. The author was not skilled at showing their true personalities, just their immediate actions, which didn't endear one single person nor situation to me.
Even through the end, when I was hoping for a successful life to reward the couple, I wanted to fast-forward through many minutes. There is nothing interesting about the whole labor or birth, but this scene, that drags on and includes ridiculous details, is a perfect example of the writer's lack of skill. It seemed like he was trying to create a saga with a high word count-and the word count just sucked the life out of anything epic or even very good.
Took me forever to be done with this book, because I often couldn't bear to start it where I'd left off. I am thankful I am done -and I only am because I hate to leave a started novel unfinished. My completion had zero to do with a care for or interest in how it all played out. Sad.
Quite possibly the most boring, droning audiobook I have struggled through. Narration didn't help.
Positive points are the historical facts and events, and how people lived through those, obviously. The POV is one I hadn't delved into to this deep a level.
Other than that, I hated this book. The wholly unnecessary details, mostly focused on the mundane, unfortunately stole what I felt couldve been layers of depth from the characters. The author was not skilled at showing their true personalities, just their immediate actions, which didn't endear one single person nor situation to me.
Even through the end, when I was hoping for a successful life to reward the couple, I wanted to fast-forward through many minutes. There is nothing interesting about the whole labor or birth, but this scene, that drags on and includes ridiculous details, is a perfect example of the writer's lack of skill. It seemed like he was trying to create a saga with a high word count-and the word count just sucked the life out of anything epic or even very good.
Took me forever to be done with this book, because I often couldn't bear to start it where I'd left off. I am thankful I am done -and I only am because I hate to leave a started novel unfinished. My completion had zero to do with a care for or interest in how it all played out. Sad.
December 9, 2020
This novel may not totally take flight as a fully convincing piece of fiction. And, indeed, the author is primarily a news correspondent rather than a novelist.
Nonetheless, it comes very close and the characters and their predicaments are reasonably believable and the story, while not as gripping as the history behind it is interesting, has nothing to be ashamed of.
The main interest comes from the somewhat untypical ground it treads, focusing on the immediate aftermath of WWII, through two different plot strands. In London, a close-knit group of Jewish refugees in London start to discover the fate of their family members whilst negotiating a precarious new life in a fraught and traumatised country that doesn't quite know (or agree) what to do with their presence. Meanwhile, in Palestine, various factions of Jews are engaging in a fight against the British for their survival whilst boats of Holocaust survivors are kept at bay in the Mediterranean. Not surprisingly, the author does gradually link the two strands - in a not entirely convincing but still not overly forced manner.
The author largely succeeds (though I see other reviewers disagree) at letting the history and politics come out through the story, rather than indulging in too much info-dumping.
What impresses the most is his portrayal of the complexity and confusion of the time. There are next to no saints or villains here. And no simple answers or solutions. The author also avoids any extremes of saccharine happy endings or tragedic excesses.
Nonetheless, it comes very close and the characters and their predicaments are reasonably believable and the story, while not as gripping as the history behind it is interesting, has nothing to be ashamed of.
The main interest comes from the somewhat untypical ground it treads, focusing on the immediate aftermath of WWII, through two different plot strands. In London, a close-knit group of Jewish refugees in London start to discover the fate of their family members whilst negotiating a precarious new life in a fraught and traumatised country that doesn't quite know (or agree) what to do with their presence. Meanwhile, in Palestine, various factions of Jews are engaging in a fight against the British for their survival whilst boats of Holocaust survivors are kept at bay in the Mediterranean. Not surprisingly, the author does gradually link the two strands - in a not entirely convincing but still not overly forced manner.
The author largely succeeds (though I see other reviewers disagree) at letting the history and politics come out through the story, rather than indulging in too much info-dumping.
What impresses the most is his portrayal of the complexity and confusion of the time. There are next to no saints or villains here. And no simple answers or solutions. The author also avoids any extremes of saccharine happy endings or tragedic excesses.
December 7, 2022
Better than I thought it would be. I don't know much about the political events of that time but I do question the childbirth in hospital. It seems Edith's pregnancy was not deemed exceptional but she was taken to hospital where the delivery was to be assisted by a doctor and nurses. As it happened the birth was exceptional. But even 20 years later most births in the UK were expected to occur at home attended by a midwife. But all's well that ends well.
September 6, 2014
What I liked about this book is its WWII parallels to the current immigration issues the U.S. is facing. In "The List" some Londoners are not happy about Jewish refugees who settled in London. Because of the heavy bombing by the Nazis, there's a housing shortage and people think the way to solve it is to send refugees home. OK, it's cold-hearted, and frankly nuts to think this way. It was hard to read through this part of the book. The refugees are ill, and trying to find their family members. They feel bombarded by their enemies. Though one couple, Georg and Edith, are afraid, they try to fix the situation by going to town meetings and appealing to people's hearts. This is a very moving book about the plight of Georg, Edith and other WWII refugees. And the ways they are able to find family, jobs and recover from the pain of the war. My only complaint is the author juggles the story line with retalatory bombings against the British in Israel. I think he should have stayed with the one story line.
February 3, 2012
This was a quick read focusing on the anti-Semitism that still pervaded many countries even after WWII ended. Most of the action here takes place in London, where Edith and Georg, both Jewish, struggle to make ends meet and to escape the prejudices against them -- as well as prepare for the baby that will soon arrive. There is a subplot in Palestine, focusing on the Jews there and their efforts to assassinate high-ranking British officials that eventually reaches Georg. Also featuring in the story is Anna, a concentration camp survivor and Edith's cousin.
I enjoyed the London storyline more than the one in Palestine. The thing that was most fascinating to me was the struggle of the survivors after being "liberated" from the camps. Liberated to what? Many had no one and nothing left. I was not aware of the prejudice that remained throughout Europe, and even in the US.
I enjoyed the London storyline more than the one in Palestine. The thing that was most fascinating to me was the struggle of the survivors after being "liberated" from the camps. Liberated to what? Many had no one and nothing left. I was not aware of the prejudice that remained throughout Europe, and even in the US.
December 29, 2019
I’ve read a lot of World War II era historical fiction, and this is not one of my favorites. The plot taking place in Palestine was difficult to follow, and the plot taking place in London was too often told through long diatribes and flashbacks instead of action. A lot of time was spent lamenting “What will happen when baby comes?” and “Who is this man really?” and “When will he find a job?” and “What really happened to Anna in the camps?”. As soon as the novel begins, we know the answers to those questions, so why keep repeating them over and over. I also found some of the “sexier” scenes super awkwardly written! You can DEFINITELY tell it was written from a mans point of view! That said, I did read it pretty quick and it was entertaining enough for me to not put it down and start something else.
June 13, 2015
This book is so much more than a standard post-Holocaust novel. Set in London in 1945, written by an NBC correspondent who drew on his family's and to a lesser extent his own experience in constructing the plot, "The List" presents a memorable cast of characters, some of them survivors, some who escaped to London before the worst atrocities, and some native Londoners. Through these characters, the reader gains insight into and knowledge about the world of displaced persons, the Israeli underground in immediate post-War years, and nascent British anti-Semitism amidst its counterbalancing welcoming of refugees. There is much food for thought in considering the events of the novel against the background of present-day political tensions. It is a book that will be hard to forget.
January 8, 2012
In the months immediately following World War II, a Jewish refugee couple in London waits for news about their lists of missing family members. Their wait is soon filled with enough action and emotion for several lifetimes. As one refugee remarks in the novel "Every survivor has an extraordinary story. Otherwise, they'd be dead." Fletcher does justice to that notion in this page-turner of a novel. Skip "Sarah's Key" and "22 Britannia Road" and go directly to "The List."
November 13, 2011
book set in immediate post WW II London. Heard author speak and found out all events referenced in his work of fiction actually took place. Main couple in book loosely based on author's parents. Good read.
November 7, 2011
Please see my review for The Jewish Journal (review is based on complimentary review copy).
April 16, 2012
I listened to the audio book. I have read many books on the holocaust and this was not one of the better ones. I found the characters not likeable and the story boring to follow. I gave up 1/3 of the way thru.
July 11, 2012
A strong 3.5, 3.75 maybe but not quite a four. Its got a little long, but I've never read an account of Jewish life immediately following WWII that so touchingly explored the relief at being alive and the grief of learning the fate of family members.
November 21, 2011
I really enjoyed this book about the Jews in London and Palestine after WWII. It's not a time/subject that we read much about.
November 3, 2013
I was completely swept away by the character's plight and dilemma. I cried, I laughed, and was surprised at every turn. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
January 9, 2014
It was ok. Readable. I was really excited to read something from WW2 from a different viewpoint-the aftermath, but the book just wasn't all that great.
May 13, 2019
Disjointed and boring....
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