Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit: Nesthäkchen Band 5

Nesthäkchen #5

by Else Ury

Nesthäkchen feiert im Kreis ihrer Freundinnen den 16. Geburtstag. Noch immer ist sie zu allen Dummheiten und Scherzen bereit, auch wenn die Schule Fleiß und ganze Aufmerksamkeit fordert. Im Winter muß Annemarie mit ihren Klassenkameradinnen Schnee schippen. Es ist ein harter Winter mit wenig Kohlen und viel Eis und Schnee, aber Annemarie und ihren Freundinnen vermag er den übermütigen Frohsinn nicht zu nehmen. Wunderschöne Ferienwochen verlebt Nesthäkchen im Sommer auf dem Gutshof ihres Onkels und gewinnt einen bleibenden Eindruck von den Nöten und Freuden eines Landwirtes. Der Höhepunkt der schönen Backfischjahre ist die Tanzstunde. Nesthäkchen ist eine beliebte Tänzerin. Ein großes Ereignis ist ihr erster Ball. Nach bestandenem Abitur finden sich Annemarie und ihre Freundinnen zu einer fröhlichen Nachfeier und verabschieden sich von ihren Lehrern mit einem kleinen Stegreifspiel.

Genres: Childrens, Young Adult, Classics, Fiction, German Literature

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Else Ury (November 1, 1877 in Berlin; January 13, 1943 in the Auschwitz concentration camp) was a German writer and children's book author. Her best-known character is the blonde doctor's daughter Annemarie Braun, whose life from childhood to old age is told in the ten volumes of the highly successful Nesthäkchen series.
During Ury's lifetime Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg (Nesthäkchen and the World War), the fourth volume, was the most popular. Else Ury was a member of the German Bürgertum (middle class). She was pulled between patriotic German citizenship and Jewish cultural heritage. This situation is reflected in her writings, although the Nesthäkchen books make no references to Judaism.
As a Jew during the Holocaust, Ury was barred from publishing, stripped of her possessions, deported to Auschwitz and gassed the day after she arrived. A cenotaph in Berlin's Weissensee Jewish Cemetery (Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee) memorializes her.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

So for the most part, in her 1919 children's (girls') novel Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit (with Backfisch representing a today mostly rather obsolete German noun for teenager), Else Ury features an engaging combination of both humour and seriousness, of fun delight but also and equally so more problematic scenarios (showing Annemarie Braun's, showing Nesthäkchen's life as a teenager and up to the time she finishes the Gymnasium with academic distinction, with Else Ury's narrative taking place right after WWI but also during a time of increasing social unrest). And while generally Nesthäkchen's Backfischzeit is of course optimistic, positive and generally also imbued with a much delightful sense of wit and humour, the fun and engaging aspects of Annemarie Braun's life as a high school student in post WWI Germany (such as taking dancing lessons, having fun with her school friends, and yes, even studying for her Abitur, for her high school matriculation) are therefore also tempered with and by the fact that social conditions in post First World War Germany are both harsh and woefully unpredictable (often not enough food and fuel products available even if one has the necessary funds for this, social unrest leading to wildcat and unpredictable strikes, and indeed, the threat of an armed civil rebellion if not a revolution appearing as a constant spectre).

Now if I were just to rank Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit, with how much I have generally enjoyed Else Ury's presented narrative content and thematics wise, my rating would likely if not even certainly be four stars (for a humorous and engagingly delightful text, by necessity of the publication year of course of its time and especially with regard to gender stratification and to what a woman's "role" in life is supposed to be, but also very much realistic and even sometimes with flashes of serious avant-guardedness).

However, I do have to admit that the rather exaggerated and continuous scenario of Annemarie Braun's (of Nesthäkchen's) Polish friend Vera always always being depicted and shown by Else Ury as talking in a very much awkward German, this does make me feel rather uncomfortable (and indeed, enough so to now only consider three stars for Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit). Because for one, I do feel that Vera's consistent and broken German is rather condescending in and of itself (and also rather over-used by the author). And for two, and in fact much more of a potential issue in my opinion, I for one do very much find it strange and almost a trifle unacceptable that whereas in Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg (which is indeed the previous novel to Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit even if Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg is now no longer officially published and recognised) Vera very quickly learns almost fluent German (except for some minor pronunciation issues), in the following book, in Nesthäkchens Backfischzeit and indeed also beyond that, Vera's German is usually depicted by Else Ury as being quite majorly lacking and sometimes downright incomprehensible.