The Iron Tracks

by Aharon Appelfeld

During the Second World War, Erwin Siegelbaum's parents were killed by Nachtigel, the man who ran the Nazi camp in which they and their son were captive laborers. Now, more than 40 years later, Erwin lives his life on and off the trains of south central Europe, performing each year the same migratory circuit of stations and towns, inns and markets--of friends and enemies, comrades and rivals: "Since the end of the war, I have been on this line, as they say: a long, twisted line stretching from Naples to the cold north, a line of locals, trams, taxis, and carriages. The seasons shift before my eyes like an illusion.... My route is fixed, more fixed every year. Imprinted on my body, it cannot be shaken."

Erwin is a businessman of sorts. Trusting to a remarkable intuition, he ferrets out and purchases Jewish relics and antiques, then resells them to Jewish collectors in order to fund his perpetual travels. But he has another vocation as well, the secret reason for all his years of peregrination: to hunt down Nachtigel, and to execute him at last. Of his tormentor, and of all who collaborated in the attempted extermination of the Jewish people, he says, "As long as they live, our lives are not our lives." And so Erwin makes his annual round, at times hounded by nightmares and by melancholy, at others solaced by the simple beauty of the world in which he finds himself: "I can sit in a buffet and imagine, for instance, what's happening in distant Hansen, how the snow is falling there and softly covering the narrow lanes. Or Café Anton, where they serve warm rolls in the earliest hours of the morning, with coffee and cherry jam."

And so, too, we follow him, ever more fascinated by his concerns and his memories, ever more apprehensive about the possibility of a confrontation with Nachtigel. For the great year has arrived at last: Nachtigel has come out of hiding. If we are ambivalent about Erwin's plan to kill the killer, Aharon Appelfeld will not tell us which of our contradictory responses is the right one. This is, after all, a story about the hopeless tangling of identities and loyalties endemic to the human condition--about how a victim may become a murderer for the sake of justice, and how a man devoted to the preservation of a precious heritage may be more deeply committed to destroying than to building anew. --Daniel Hintzsche

Genres: Holocaust, Fiction, Jewish, Historical Fiction, Israel, World War II, Novels

195 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

AHARON APPELFELD is the author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Until the Dawn's Light and The Iron Tracks (both winners of the National Jewish Book Award) and The Story of a Life (winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger). Other honors he has received include the Giovanni Bocaccio Literary Prize, the Nelly Sachs Prize, the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the MLA Commonwealth Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Yeshiva University.

Reviews

[Mehmet]

"Ve bu tekrarda tuhaf bir umut yatar. Sanki sonumuz yok oluş değil de bir çeşit yenilenmeymiş gibi." (s.8)

Daha önce Tsili - Bir Hayat isimli kitabını okuduğum Romanyalı yazarın bu okuduğum ikinci kitabı. Tsili beni oldukça etkilemişti. Bu da pek çok yönden etkiledi. Toplama kamplarından kurtulan insanların içlerinde kalan o acı izleri düşündürdü en çok. Ordan kurtulmuşlardı ama kafalarındaki "Auchwitz"lerden kurtulması kolay mıydı?

Beni düşündüren bir diğer detay ise 2 Eylül 1945 'te savaş bitmişti ama sandığımız gibi Nazizim bir anda bitmemişti. Ben hep bunu düşünürdüm. Özellikle II. Dünya Savaşı Tarihi'ı okuduktan sonra savaş çıkaranların büyük bir pişmanlık duyması gerektiğini, Alman Sonbaharı'nı okuduktan sonra da büyük acılar çektiklerini düşünmüştüm. Oysa bu kitaptan anlıyorum ki Nazilik savaş bitince hemen bitmemiş. Bir çok soykırım faili, yaptıklarının doğru olduğuna inanmaya devam etmiş. -Daha doğrusu Appelfeld'in kurgusunda öyle.

"Atlarım trene ve ânında süzülür giderim rüzgârın kanatlarında." (s.8)

Bu kitap bir tren yolculuğu. Ancak tren bir zaman makinesi gibi işliyor. Kitap boyunca tren hareketiyle birlikte geçmişten anekdotlar kopup geliyor karşımıza. Acılar canlanıyor, hüzünler ortaya çıkıyor, kayıplar hatırlanıyor. Toplama kamplarının acı anıları ise sürekli arka kompartımanlarda karanlık gölgeler gibi katarı izliyor...

"Hayat zor ama dik durmalısın. Dik durmak bizi insan kılan şeydir." (s. 92)

Bu tarz kitaplar beni çok etkiliyor. İnsanların nasıl bu kadar "vahşileşebildiklerine" hayret ediyorum. Farklı olana nasıl bu kadar düşman olabildiklerine.

Velhasıl... Ankara bu kış soğumadı. Kar da yağmadı. Geçiyor zaman bir şekilde. Pandemide bunalıyoruz.
Okumaktan başka ne çare var?

M. Baran
04.01.2021
Ankara

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wandering Jew

Since the end of the war, I have been on this line, as they say: a long, twisted line stretching from Naples to the cold north, a line of locals, trams, taxis, and carriages. The seasons shift before my eyes like an illusion. I have learned this route with my body. Now I know every hostel and every inn, every restaurant and buffet, the vehicles that bring you to the remotest corners.

The writer, Erwin Siegelbaum, as we shall later discover, travels the rails obsessively. He is more at home in railroad dining cars (where he bribes the waiters to put on classical music) or in station buffets, than in his own home, wherever that may be. The station settings and night journeys reminded me at first of the opening chapter of Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, and that strange dreamlike atmosphere remains to some extent throughout. But bit by bit, the scale of the book shrinks. So far from the long international train journeys from Naples to points north, it appears that Erwin is pottering around rural Austria, traveling between villages (all made up, I think) so small that you could hardly imagine them having stations, let alone service by trains with dining cars. Towards the end, a journey of a mere 100 kilometers gets interrupted three or four times, as he stops off at yet one more familiar village or inn. It is like Zeno's Paradox, where the distance is always halved, but the goal remains elusive.

For a European Jew, of course, the state railways have associations more powerful than their practical use. And (like the author) Erwin is a Holocaust survivor, emerging from sealed cattle car mysteriously abandoned on a remote siding. By traveling now, he is in a sense recovering the lives of his people. Wherever he goes, he collects lost Judaica, menorahs and kiddush cups that he picks up in town fares. But he also carries a gun in preparation for an encounter with the camp commandant who murdered his parents, an old man named Nachtigel, recently returned from asylum in Uruguay.

"Reparation and retribution" says a review on the cover; I am not sure that I found either. The encounter with Nachtigel disturbed me when it finally came, falling out rather differently from what I had expected. But almost throughout the book, despite Erwin's success at rescuing the treasures of his people, I felt not restoration but the terrible weight of loss. Again and again, as village follows village, and Erwin stays with people who once has been good to him, I got an increasing sense of estrangement: the oldest friends passing on, others becoming suspicious or cold, the rising tide of anti-Semitism everywhere. Not so much a nightmare out of Calvino as a wasting disease, the slow drawing down of blinds. And that, I suspect, is the point.

[Rayna Forman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dark and depressing but haunting..

[Lorri · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a slow-moving read, yet an intense one. It moves along the tracks of time, taking the reader through Erwin Siegelbaum’s emotional conflicts. He and his parents were laborers in a Nazi camp, and that is where his parents were killed.

As we begin The Iron Tracks, time and place have moved forward four decades. As he travels closer to specific cities and towns on the train, he reflects on his life, remembering past years in those specific places. Time stands still, momentarily as he remembers the women he lusted with, the men he made small talk with, and those who he finds a sense of frienship with.

Aharon Appelfeld has a story to tell, and he tells it with magnificent prose and imagery. The emotional impact is not light and airy, but one that is depressing and disturbing. It is an intense study in one man’s thought process, emotions (or lack of), inner conflicts/world and passions. It is a study on displacement of the heart and mind. I recommend The Iron Tracks to everyone.

[Juan Hidalgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tras leer "Tzili, historia de una vida" del mismo autor, sentí curiosidad por esta otra novela, en la cual vuelve a circunvalar lo más trillado de la segunda guerra mundial y a explorar caminos poco conocidos, creando un gran mundo en torno a pequeñas vidas anónimas.

[Gośka A · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do appreciate camp/post camp literature very much. In that one, I just didn’t feel connected, I didn’t feel the depth of the main character and I disliked him for his behaviour towards women. Also, I don’t feel the book had that something, that sparkle that makes reading interesting.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book very slow moving. It is slated for review at my Book Club. I expect the reviewer will find much to praise that I obviously missed. I could not wait to finish this book so I could leave it and the train behind and move on to another book.

[La Lectora · Rating 1 out of 5]

No llegué a conectar con el personaje principal y el estilo del autor no consiguió que el libro tuviera ese algo que hace que leer sea interesante.

[Carmen212 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been an Appelfeld fan/reader since his first book, Badenheim 1939. Goodreads does not list this book. It is quite extraordinary. For 40 years our man rides the trains endlessly in a region approximating Ukraine, Poland, Ruthenia. He is searching for a specific Nazi who killed many Jews. There are others also looking. This is the region where he may be hiding (and thriving).

He stops and sleeps at an inn or hotel almost every night. Once a month he gets a real hot bath and sleeps really well. He meets other travelers and they have stories to tell, not that much different from his own. He survived the camps. He goes to markets and makes some money by ferreting out Judaica antiques that the owners don't know are valuable. In one case a 13th century manuscript in terrible condition - but hey, 13th century!

Nobody writes novels like Appelfeld. He may be an acquired taste. They are simple, really really simple. Simple sentences and simple words. But images emerge, powerful and piercing.

[Riet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moeilijk om dit boek te beschrijven. Het gaat over een Joodse man, die de holocaust overleefd heft. Hij reist nu per trein voortdurend door Oostenrijk, het land waar de Nazi's de baas waren. Hij koopt hier en daar Joodse spullen op, vooral uit oude synagoges en verkoopt die door aan iemand, die ze naar Israel zal sturen. Ergens in het boek blijkt, dat hij op zoek is naar een oud-nazi, die weer gewoon in zijn dorp woont na een poosje in Zuid-Amerika gewoond te hebben. Deze man zou zijn ouders hebben vermoord of de dood in gejaagd in een kamp. Uiteindelijk vindt hij hem en doodt hem. Alles blijft wat vaag in dit boek. Wel heel onderkoeld geschreven.

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book got off to a slow start, it is definitely worth sticking with. Applefeld is masterful at taking clichés about Jews and turning them into something else—a novel about what it is like to see your culture devastated and after that finding something to live for. In this case the protagonist finds two things worth living for—searching for and buying Jewish cultural items at small town fairs (to be resold!) and hunting the man who ran his death camp. The layers of meanings he builds into this story are truly mesmerizing.

[Ewa Koziarska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka z listy „100 książek które warto przeczytać” (65/100). Opowieść o Erwinie, Żydzie, który od 40 lat podróżuje pociągiem, zatrzymując się w tych samych miejscach. W trakcie podróży poszukuje żydowskie książki i inne przedmioty stanowiące pamięć o kulturze i historii jego narodu. Podróż to również czas wspomnień o swoim życiu i bliskich mu ludziach. Ale głównym celem jest odnalezienie i zabicie mordercy jego rodziców, którzy zginęli w obozie koncentracyjnym. Książka porusza trudną tematykę, ale warta przeczytania.

[Jan Vanderburg · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating plot of a man who was in a concentration camp forty years earlier and has been obsessively riding the Austrian trains every since. He has no home or sense of who he is so he rides the trains, stopping at familiar towns and villages, staying at favorite pensions or with friends where he can sleep, sometime for days. His mission is to find the Nazi officer who murdered his parents.
I actually couldn't wait to finish it.

[Jesica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Si bien me interesan mucho las hisotrias de sobrevivientes del holocausto; esta es el primer libro que no pude terminar. Muchos capitulos parecìan copias identicas de capitulos anteriores, muchas ideas reptidas y pàrrafos que se repetían pero escritos con otras palabras.
No pude terminarlo, se me hizo infinito.

[Sandra Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

To round off my Holocaust reading today I read this. A story of a man who after surviving the Holocaust goes back to find the colonel who shot his parents. Along the way we learn of his life on the train and the places and people with whom he feels safe. A glimpse into the world of what it was lost to someone who lost everything and more.

[Jen Pennington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Existential themes and questions by one Holocaust survivor after the war left me bereft of goodwill and angrily grinding through the ugliness and pains of antisemitism specifically, and hatred between people broadly. Left pondering if there is ever a point to revenge. Desiring to read more books by Aharon Appelfelf as this is my first.

[Agnes Kelemen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nem zseniális az író, de az alapötlet jó (szépirodalmilag megragadni azt hogy a bosszú nem gyógyítja meg a traumát és hogy mekkora antiszemitizmus van Ausztriában a Holokauszt után is). Egy igazán jó író nagyon jó regényt tudott volna írni belőle.

[K. R. Harrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and worth reading. I like the way the narrator is evasive and suspicious--you the reader have to get to know him and follow him about before he reveals anything about himself. There is also some interesting symbology with his wanderings.

[Amy S · Rating 1 out of 5]

About a concentration camp survivor who rides the trains, drinks, sleeps with women. He shoots the his parents’ Nazi murderer, but even that is described in such a muted way. Didn’t like the style of writing.

[Robert Kaplan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read. A non descriptive/muted tale of a wandering Jew in post war Europe seeking revenge for the man who murdered his family. Includes a series of characters, many Jews who were traumatized, half Jews who were ostracized and ordinary non Jews who are unabashedly anti semitic.

[Raizel]

Well written but the narrator is a drunk jerk. I do realize he had a dark past.

[Mitchell Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. Appelfeld is a skillful writer who does not hit you over the head with feelings, but the emotions are just beneath the surface. A very moving and meaningful book.

[Hadrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[Edyta D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Głównym bohaterem jest Erwin Siegelbaum, który spędza życie w podróży, zatrzymując się ciągle w tych samych miejscach, aby wyszukać "skarby" kultury żydowskiej, dzięki którym zarabiał na życie. Jego podróż, przedstawiane miejsca, znajomi ludzie, każdy aspekt wyprawy jest związany z latami młodości, z latami ucieczek, z obozem, śmiercią i stratą najbliższych. Jego podróż jest dodatkowo próbą odnalezienia człowieka o nazwisku Nachtigal, człowieka, który zamordował jego rodziców.
"Droga żelazna" to przede wszystkim cierpienie, życie bez miłości, w milczeniu i brak swojego miejsca na świecie. Tematyka trudna, nie w moich klimatach, ale historia warta poznania i przeczytania. Polecam.
Historia przeczytana w ramach wyzwania zdrapywania plakatu o 100 książkach - 32/100.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fine novel follows a mostly-unnamed narrator who travels by train during the 1980s through Austria, collecting Jewish religious relics (either discarded or completely devalued) which he sells to wealthy benefactors for eventual return to Israel. But as the story progresses he slowly reveals the real purpose of his travels - to track down a WWII work camp officer whom he blames for the murder of his parents. The overall tone of the novel is joyless and grim, as the narrator repeatedly connects and disconnects with old acquaintances at each station along the line, broods endlessly over memories of his tragic childhood, and faces his ultimate mission of revenge. Yet even that act of revenge brings him no emotional lift or redemption, and as his life goes on mostly as before he realizes that the atrocities of the past can never be corrected - just as the small-town Jewish culture can never be restored to Austria, which warrants the removal of the relics to Israel and the hope of a brighter future there. The Iron Tracks is a deeply contemplative and satisfying novel, and my first exposure to Appelfeld, a writer I’m sure I will be returning to.

[Nicholas Kopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a great book! I randomly picked it off the book shelf and started reading. If you want a book to read before you go to bed that will put you to sleep not because its boring but because of the peaceful and beautiful imagery Appelfeld uses describing his voyage on the trains this is a book for you.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. The author communicates sadness, emptiness and loneliness in such a lovely way that I could not help but feel deeply for the main character Erwin. A revenge tale like no other. Highly recommend.

[Maryska · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how abstract this particular holocaust novel was. It is unlike any other of the books within this particular subject. Wonderful book; intriguing story. I may read this one again soon because I enjoyed it so much.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather average book, but it's not very boring. Not to read on short bus or tram ride.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say I was profoundly moved by this short novel, but it was a very unusual and satisfying story. Made me think.