Badenheim 1939

I had expected to love this book, but I found it both discomfiting and slightly alienating. It tells the story of upper-class Austrian Jews who intend to spend the summer in a spa town (Badenheim), only to find themselves under quarantine before deportation to Poland under mysterious circumstances. The writing is very subtle. The plot line and focus of the narration are often lost.The book is clearly an allegory for the Holocaust. The town's Sanitation Department starts investigating everyone's premises, surveys their possessions, and soon requires that all Jews register. Gentiles leave the town, which is then surrounded by wire and sentries. Occasionally, other Austrian Jews find their way to Badenheim or are sent there. The Austrian authorities half-heartedly attempt to convince the residents that they would like living in Poland (and most of the Austrian Jews are of Polish descent). Life among the sealed town's residents is sometimes fraught with tensions and dissent and sometimes bacchanalia. Eventually, the residents are compelled (though without any violence and minimal police) to walk to the train station for a train to Poland.One thing that really threw me off was the title. The original, Hebrew title is "Badenhaim Ir Nofesh," which means "Badenheim, resort town." But the translator called the book "Badenheim 1939." By putting "1939" in the title, she totally messed up the historical context...or gave the book a historical context that doesn't work. In 1939, Austria was already part of Nazi Germany. As a result, Austrian Jews already faced extreme discrimination and control -- not the gradual increase in this book. In 1939, with Austria as part of Nazi Germany, there were no more Austrian government authorities -- just Nazi German officials (many of whom had been Austrians, of course). And the authorities were not subtle or gentle with the Jews. In the summer of 1939, Poland was not under Nazi control, and Austrian Jews could not be sent there willy-nilly. The book is a fable, but by giving it the wrong title, the translator has incorrectly situated it in a real historical context.

This novel is a powerful and memorable contribution to Holocaust literature. Jewish residents and vacationers in the quaint, arty town of Badenheim face increasing restrictions on their daily lives and -- if they are willing to look -- their futures. Reminds me a bit of Brecht's "The Jewish Wife," combined with (as many other critics have noted) the style of Kafka.

This is a book about how fascism can creep up on you and is mostly carried out by bureaucrats who have no visible animosity, but are "just doing their jobs". Fascism is shown here not as a snarling monster that announces itself with gnashing teeth, but more like a discomfort in your abdomen that turns out to be a stage 4 tumor by the time you get it looked at during a routine exam. I don't want to spoil anything, but you should read it. It's a little slow here and there, but slim and you can get through it quickly.

The book stays with you

Very nice little book that tells the story of Jewish people in Austria who were hoodwinked by the Nazis into thinking they were being taken to a small village to work but were instead sent to a concentration camp.

I'd read a lot about him and his time in WWII so I had to grab something by him. Lyrically written and intriguing.

Brilliant.

Badenheim 1939 is the first book of Appelfeld's that I read, many years ago. His pared down style, which may seem simple at first glance, is one of the things that makes this a great work of literature of any type, not just within it's genre of Holocaust literature. I was gripped by anxiety knowing what awaited the characters who seemed blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding around them. The ending was gripping and unforgettable.

I really didn't like this book, even though it is beautifully written and a good translation. I think that I don't like it because it is such a thoroughly Zionist perspective on the holocaust. It focuses on a group of German/Austrian Jews in a spa resort who wilfully refuse to see the increasingly obvious signs around them that something terrible is happening. While the 'Sanitation Department' fences them they continue to obsess about music and eat pastries. Even when the food starts to run out they refuse to see what is happening to them and what is so obviously going to happen.At one level it's possible to see this as a universal fable about denial, but I think that Appelfeld, as a mainstream Israeli writer and a holocaust survivor himself is writing about more than this. His own experience of the Holocaust was nothing to do with that of German/Austrian Jews. He hid in the forests and served with a Red Army unit as a cook. But the Zionist narrative spends a lot of time on German Jews, even though they were a tiny minority of holocaust victims, because they illustrate so well the argument that assimilation is doomed to failure. Appelfeld emphasises how little the Jews in his story feel for their Jewish identity, how important German high culture is to them.He also seems to have very little sympathy for them. They don't have any sort of inner life; we just see their increasingly obnoxious behaviour and listen to their pretentious speech.It's hard to avoid the implication that they have brought their fate upon themselves, by their bad choices and their refusal to see what is going on. If this isn't victim-blaming I don't know what is.[Spoiler Alert] If there is any doubt about this the final passage of the book drives the lesson home. The Jews are marched towards cattle trucks for deportation, and their 'leader' reassures himself that the filthy state of the train is surely proof that their journey will be a short one. Even as they are being deported he continues to believe the best of the Germans. It is very moving, and it moves you to where the author wants you to go. It doesn't seem to me to be an exploration of denial in general, or even about the holocaust in general, but rather a polemic against Jews who thought they were part of European civilisation.

A good & thought provoking novel. A great picture of how we can be programmed into accepting situations.