Chris' Fish Place

Disclaimer: Read via Netgalley and courtesy of Open Road Media.

                There is a wonderful YouTube series called “Ask a Slave”.   The woman who started it, who stars in it, got the idea when she was working as a re-enactor at a historical site (I believe Mt. Vernon) and got asked stupid questions.  She even had people try to argue in front of students that slavery wasn’t really that bad of a thing.

                I’m surprised that she is so restrained in the series.

                I thought about that series as I read this book.  Anna Elisabeth Rasmus is a German woman who was born and raised in the city of Passau.  She was raised in the period after the war and eventually became obsessed (in a good way) with her city’s history of the war.  Her desire for truth led to conflict not only in her home city, but in her country as well.  There was even a movie about her, one that I will be tracking down.  This book is more about her journey in an abstract sense, a family history and a history of discovery instead of the discovery itself.

                Which means at times it reads almost like two books in one – part city history, part personal history.   In some ways, it is about guilt of a country and coming terms with it.  But this dual personality at times leaves the reader wondering what the purpose is.  The best chapters are the ones that deal with Rasmus’ family history, including what her grandmother did in the Second World War.  These stories also include some horrifying and some touching ones concerning Passau.  Connections are made to Hitler, who spent time in the city, as well as to the lingering Nazism of some the citizens. 

                This first section is very much like The Witness House, and like that book, could only be written by a German.

                The second half of the book is more about what Rasmus learned about herself and people in general as she traveled in doing her research.  While this section can be moving, in particular when she discusses her daughters, it feels a little looser than the first half.  The theme, if you will, is the multiculturalism that she finds outside of Germany, perhaps allowing her to form more questions.

                To call it pleasurable reading would be incorrect.  It is good reading, however, because it is about discovery, something that we should all take part in.