Just read two WW2 novels: Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers (1987) and Tatiana de Rosnay’s Sarah’s Key, written some 20 years
later, in 2007. Huge contrast: Piercy’s literary tale of the interwoven fates
of her characters weighs beautifully heavy. De
Rosnay’s story probably originated in a good idea but is written into clunky
dialogue and clumsy plot-swings.
Both focus on the horror of the treatment of Jews during the
war years. We read it as fiction, but cannot forget that it was real – therein lies
the power of such material to appall yet fascinate.
Fast forward then to Britain, 2017: a young Kurdish-Iranian asylum
seeker, 17, is attacked in the street; brutally beaten. He came here for sanctuary; there is none. How many tried
to stop it? It is an awful parallel to draw.
Over and over, the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe and its
abhorrent outcome is charted in fiction, but we cannot forget that its origins
lie in reality. Some 60 years later, we are in a new and dreadful reality of
our own.
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