Bronstein's Children [Paperback]

Jurek Becker (Author), Leila Vennewitz (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226041271 | ISBN-13: 978-0226041278 | Publication Date: May 15, 1999 | Edition: 1

"East Berlin, 1973: an 18-year-old Jew discovers that his father's friends are holding prisoner a former Nazi concentration camp guard in the family cottage. The three older men have handcuffed the ex-Nazi to the bed and are interrogating and torturing him in an attempt to get him to admit to his war crimes. . . . Becker keenly shows the tension between members of the Holocaust generation and their children, who are unable to understand the complexity of that nightmarish era of human history."—Booklist

"[A] chilly, disquieting novel about historical slippage; about the seemingly inevitable decline of horror into a vague and generic recollection. The East German writer has devised something between story and allegory to evoke the cold generational millennium that separates a father, with his concentration-camp memories, from a son, adrift in a society with no memories whatsoever."—Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Mr. Becker, writing simply and clearly in an unstrained narrative, speaks with the voice of knowledge, and we do well to listen to him."—Eva Figes, New York Times Book Review

Jurek Becker (1937-1998) is the author of Jacob the Liar, Sleepless Days, The Boxer, and Amanda Herzlos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eighteen-year-old Hans, a German Jew, plans to use his family's cottage in the woods to make love to his girlfriend, but he arrives there to find his father and two other men beating an aged, handcuffed man. The prisoner is a former Nazi concentration camp guard who had tortured the trio 30 years ago. While this ambivalent novel fails to develop its stunning premise, it offers a disquieting parable on the relationship between victim and persecutor, the thirst for justice and on the abyss separating Germany's affluent postwar generation from the not-so-distant past. Hans sees his father reduced from a Hercules to a sadistic torturer; his violent, confused sister is almost poisoned by a nurse in a mental home; his classmates' loutish remarks may be motivated by anti-Semitism. Set in East Berlin in 1973, Becker's believable fable profiles a thoughtful adolescent growing up in a spiritual vacuum.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Bronstein's children are Elle and Hans, narrator of this story, and his fatal heart attack opens and closes this story of Hans's last year at school. In flashbacks to the events leading up to his father's traumatic death, we follow Hans as he surprises Bronstein "interrogating" a former concentration camp guard at the family's forest cabin. After wrestling with his father's attitude, Hans decides to set the guard free. Bronstein's generation is obsessed, it seems, with retaliation for the Holocaust, while Hans takes a more humanitarian view. Unlike Becker's Sleepless Days ( LJ 9/1/79) and the blackly humorous Jacob the Liar ( LJ 10/15/75), this novel makes a positive statement. Recommended. Sandy Glover, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (May 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226041271
• ISBN-13: 978-0226041278
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #566,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A complex, compelling read, December 3, 2000

By 

Karen E. Thomas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bronstein's Children (Paperback)

Becker's Bronstein's Children is (to use a cliche) a compulsively readable narrative. Becker dramatically illustrates the complex relationship between the older and younger generations of German Jews--the older having lived through Hitler's Final Solution and the younger not understanding why the past constantly haunts them. The chapters alternate between the past and the present, showing that history pervades the very being of those Jews living in Germany after the horrors of World War II. The past is omnipresent both for those who lived through it and those who did not but must live with its consequences and try to understand it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A True Disappointment, September 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bronstein's Children (Paperback)

Becker, who is known for the book Jacob the Liar, starts out with a fascinating premise: a son of a Holocaust survivor, residing in E. Germany, finds that his father and some friends are holding a former concentration camp guard a prisoner in a cabin. It is the 1970's, and the son wrestles with this information. What, if anything, should he do? Unfortunately, the premise is the only worthwhile thing about his book. It just does not deliver. The characters, especially the son, is superficial, not drawn with much, if any, depth. I couldn't figure out why the son even cared about what his father was doing; he didn't seem to care about much else. This book was a real disappointment.