Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Amsterdam Lebowski Publishers 2018
Library's review
Otto Silbermann is het ene moment nog een succesvol zakenman, het andere moment gereduceerd tot de letter J in zijn paspoort. Overal loert het gevaar, zijn vermogen slinkt en wat er van rest is zijn laatste houvast - alleen met zijn aktetas vol marken, ziet hij nog een uitweg, hoopt hij nog aan de
De reiziger is een krachtige en beklemmende wanhoopskreet, een schrijnende aanklacht van de muren van onbegrip en afschuw waar vluchtelingen op botsen.
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vervolging te kunnen ontsnappen. Silbermann spoort van Berlijn naar Aken, naar Hamburg, naar Dresden, terug naar Berlijn, naar Dortmund, terug naar Berlijn, maar kan uiteindelijk nergens heen. Zonder papieren blijven de buitengrenzen voor hem gesloten, in alle hotels en pensions stoot hij op 'Heil Hitler'-kretende partijleden, zijn zaak bestaat niet meer, zijn huis is kort en klein geslagen, zijn (niet-Joodse) vrouw is gevlucht naar haar Nazistische broer. Hij mijdt andere Joden, veelal op dezelfde manier als waarop niet-Joden hem mijden en geeft zich tenslotte gewonnen.De reiziger is een krachtige en beklemmende wanhoopskreet, een schrijnende aanklacht van de muren van onbegrip en afschuw waar vluchtelingen op botsen.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz came from a middle-class Berlin Jewish family. He and his mother emigrated in 1935, and he lived first in Sweden, where his first novel Menschen neben dem Leben was published successfully (in Swedish, and under a pseudonym) then in France before moving to the UK in 1939,
Despite attempts by Heinrich Böll and others to get it published after the war, the original German typescript of Der Reisende languished in an archive for decades and was in danger of being forgotten altogether until Peter Graf, who has republished other exile-literature, heard about it through the author's surviving relatives, and brought out the first German edition of the book nearly eighty years after it was written. This rediscovery also led to the publication of a new English translation as The passenger. Menschen neben dem Leben has also now been published in German.
Der Reisende, written at great speed in a few weeks at the end of 1938, is Boschwitz's reaction to the events of early November, the orchestrated anti-Jewish riots of the "Kristallnacht" which gave Jewish Germans an unambiguous indication that they could not safely remain living in their own country, but unfortunately didn't motivate neighbouring countries to open their borders to refugees.
Berlin businessman and First World War veteran Otto Silbermann has so far been able to accommodate himself reasonably well to living under the Nazis, but from one day to the next he finds his world falling apart. His friends are unreachable, or take the opportunity to buy up his remaining assets at rock-bottom prices, his non-Jewish wife runs away to her family, and he's only just able to escape in time when thugs break into his apartment to smash it up.
All Silbermann can think of to do is to get on a train and head for the nearest vaguely friendly country, but of course he doesn't have any means of getting over the frontier legally. He's given a tip about a people-trafficker, but arrives only to find that the man has already been arrested. He tries for the Belgian border, and manages to cross secretly, but the Belgians send him straight back, and it's back to the railway, criss-crossing Germany haphazardly in express trains. At one point he tells himself "I have already emigrated: I'm not in Germany any more, I'm in the German Reichsbahn." And eventually, of course, he finds himself back in Berlin, having achieved nothing except to escape arrest but lose his remaining money. All rational planning being exhausted, he decides on one last, glorious piece of symbolic resistance.
It's a book written in a rage by a young and highly engaged writer, so even with Graf's tactful cleaning up of the typescript it's a bit rough around the edges here and there, but it's an astonishingly vivid picture of what it feels like suddenly to be unwanted, an outlaw in your own country. A worthwhile rediscovery. What a shame Boschwitz didn't get the chance to leave us more than those two novels.
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where this, his second book, was published in English translation, originally as The man who took trains (The fugitive in the US). Like many Jewish refugees he was interned by the ever-hospitable British as an "enemy alien", being sent to a camp in Australia for a couple of years. He died, together with 361 other passengers, when the ship bringing him back from Australia was torpedoed in October 1942. The unfinished manuscript of his third novel was lost with him.Despite attempts by Heinrich Böll and others to get it published after the war, the original German typescript of Der Reisende languished in an archive for decades and was in danger of being forgotten altogether until Peter Graf, who has republished other exile-literature, heard about it through the author's surviving relatives, and brought out the first German edition of the book nearly eighty years after it was written. This rediscovery also led to the publication of a new English translation as The passenger. Menschen neben dem Leben has also now been published in German.
Der Reisende, written at great speed in a few weeks at the end of 1938, is Boschwitz's reaction to the events of early November, the orchestrated anti-Jewish riots of the "Kristallnacht" which gave Jewish Germans an unambiguous indication that they could not safely remain living in their own country, but unfortunately didn't motivate neighbouring countries to open their borders to refugees.
Berlin businessman and First World War veteran Otto Silbermann has so far been able to accommodate himself reasonably well to living under the Nazis, but from one day to the next he finds his world falling apart. His friends are unreachable, or take the opportunity to buy up his remaining assets at rock-bottom prices, his non-Jewish wife runs away to her family, and he's only just able to escape in time when thugs break into his apartment to smash it up.
All Silbermann can think of to do is to get on a train and head for the nearest vaguely friendly country, but of course he doesn't have any means of getting over the frontier legally. He's given a tip about a people-trafficker, but arrives only to find that the man has already been arrested. He tries for the Belgian border, and manages to cross secretly, but the Belgians send him straight back, and it's back to the railway, criss-crossing Germany haphazardly in express trains. At one point he tells himself "I have already emigrated: I'm not in Germany any more, I'm in the German Reichsbahn." And eventually, of course, he finds himself back in Berlin, having achieved nothing except to escape arrest but lose his remaining money. All rational planning being exhausted, he decides on one last, glorious piece of symbolic resistance.
It's a book written in a rage by a young and highly engaged writer, so even with Graf's tactful cleaning up of the typescript it's a bit rough around the edges here and there, but it's an astonishingly vivid picture of what it feels like suddenly to be unwanted, an outlaw in your own country. A worthwhile rediscovery. What a shame Boschwitz didn't get the chance to leave us more than those two novels.
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LibraryThing member ericlee
It seems like everyone who reads this books loves it, and the praise from book reviewers is deafening. Allow me to offer a dissenting view.
While the life story of the author is tragic and moving (a Jewish refugee from Germany who eventually lost his life in a U-boat attack), I did not find this
It tells the story of a German Jewish businessman who runs away from his home (and his non-Jewish wife) on the Kristallnacht in 1938 and then races across Germany by train. No one is pursuing him — indeed, no one seems to notice him — and he has no end goal in sight. He just goes from one city to another, back and forth. The one thing he sort-of tries, crossing the border into Belgium, is a non-starter. And that’s the whole story. Nothing else really happens.
The central character is unappealing and uninteresting. His obsession about the money he carries with him, and the money he has lost, seems almost like a caricature of how Jews were portrayed by the Nazis. His indifference to the fate of his wife seems to play to that role as well.
I was so hoping for a better book …
While the life story of the author is tragic and moving (a Jewish refugee from Germany who eventually lost his life in a U-boat attack), I did not find this
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book moving or believable.It tells the story of a German Jewish businessman who runs away from his home (and his non-Jewish wife) on the Kristallnacht in 1938 and then races across Germany by train. No one is pursuing him — indeed, no one seems to notice him — and he has no end goal in sight. He just goes from one city to another, back and forth. The one thing he sort-of tries, crossing the border into Belgium, is a non-starter. And that’s the whole story. Nothing else really happens.
The central character is unappealing and uninteresting. His obsession about the money he carries with him, and the money he has lost, seems almost like a caricature of how Jews were portrayed by the Nazis. His indifference to the fate of his wife seems to play to that role as well.
I was so hoping for a better book …
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LibraryThing member RonWelton
The passenger is Otto Silbermann, a Jewish businessman who barely avoids arrest by the Nazis on Kristallnacht, then finds himself completely cut off from all he has known, with his very humanity denied. The writing is sophomoric but the examination of Silbermann's reactions to his plight is deeply
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philosophic and terribly moving. Show Less
LibraryThing member Judiex
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s life was tragically very short. Before he died, he wrote THE PASSENGER, an incredible look into the life and mind of a Jewish businessman in Berlin just as the Holocaust was beginning.
Life in Germany was good for Otto Silbermann. He was an honest, trustworthy man, a
As Otto fled, he tried to resume his life but things had changed drastically. The man with whom he was about to close a business deal began to back out of it, eventually offering him a much smaller price and saying Otto would probably lose the property anyhow and wouldn’t get anything.
When Otto returned to the businesses where he had been a regular patron, he was turned away because of his religion. People he considered friends wanted nothing to do with him. Although he didn’t “look Jewish,” he became afraid of being recognized as such and sent away.
He decided to get away from Berlin and got on a train. Then another one. Then another one as he sought safety. He had a lot of money in his briefcase (which for some reason he would tell other people, especially strangers, about.) At one point, he decided to try to leave Germany only to be sent back by guards on the other side.
Along the way, he becomes more paranoid (which was totally understandable) and more and more frantic. He meets some people who appear to be understanding and helpful but others are not.
As his flight continues, we can see Otto panicking and deteriorating mentally as he continues his flight finding, for the first time in his life, that his reputation, honesty, and money could not help. The only thing that mattered was that he was a Jew in Germany in 1938.
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz wrote THE PASSENGER within a few weeks after Kristallnacht. His understanding of what was happening and what the future held was amazing. He had left Germany and gone to several European countries, and later England with his mother three years previously when he was 20 years old. They, like all Jewish refugees, were placed in an internment camp and later exiled to another camp in Australia. In 1942, he was able to return to England to join the British forces. Tragically, the ship was torpedoed and he died. The book was well received in many countries, but not published in Germany for several decades afterwards.
His death was loss for all.
Life in Germany was good for Otto Silbermann. He was an honest, trustworthy man, a
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veteran of WWI, a successful and respected businessman, a husband and father. He was very satisfied. Then came November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht, when his whole world changed. Storm troopers banged on his door and he fled through the rear door, leaving his wife behind, knowing she would be safe. The reason: He was Jewish, she was Christian.As Otto fled, he tried to resume his life but things had changed drastically. The man with whom he was about to close a business deal began to back out of it, eventually offering him a much smaller price and saying Otto would probably lose the property anyhow and wouldn’t get anything.
When Otto returned to the businesses where he had been a regular patron, he was turned away because of his religion. People he considered friends wanted nothing to do with him. Although he didn’t “look Jewish,” he became afraid of being recognized as such and sent away.
He decided to get away from Berlin and got on a train. Then another one. Then another one as he sought safety. He had a lot of money in his briefcase (which for some reason he would tell other people, especially strangers, about.) At one point, he decided to try to leave Germany only to be sent back by guards on the other side.
Along the way, he becomes more paranoid (which was totally understandable) and more and more frantic. He meets some people who appear to be understanding and helpful but others are not.
As his flight continues, we can see Otto panicking and deteriorating mentally as he continues his flight finding, for the first time in his life, that his reputation, honesty, and money could not help. The only thing that mattered was that he was a Jew in Germany in 1938.
Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz wrote THE PASSENGER within a few weeks after Kristallnacht. His understanding of what was happening and what the future held was amazing. He had left Germany and gone to several European countries, and later England with his mother three years previously when he was 20 years old. They, like all Jewish refugees, were placed in an internment camp and later exiled to another camp in Australia. In 1942, he was able to return to England to join the British forces. Tragically, the ship was torpedoed and he died. The book was well received in many countries, but not published in Germany for several decades afterwards.
His death was loss for all.
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LibraryThing member Romonko
This book was written in 1938 when Boschwitz was 23 years old. He penned it in a few weeks and then went off to war. The book got misplaced and lost and then in 2 short years, Boschwitz was killed in the war. The book found its way back somehow and was re-released just a year or so ago. Boschwitz
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was himself a German Jew, and his character, Otto Silbermann, is also. Otto is a successful businessman, and a former soldier who fought in WWI. He doesn't believe that his life may be in danger because of his ethnicity, and waits too long to get out of Germany. He barely makes it through Kristellnacht where Jews were rounded up, and he finds himself riding the rails all throughout Germany to keep ahead of the Nazis. He has lost his business, his home and many of his business friends and connections. His wife, who is Aryan, is not in danger so she encouraged Otto to get out of the house when the roundup was occurring. Otto travels around Germany with his suitcase and a briefcase full of what money he has salvaged from his successful business. Both become albatrosses around his neck while he is running. The suitcase is left near the Belgian border as Otto is sent back to Germany after he had tried to illegally enter Belgium. The briefcase stays with him a little longer, but it too becomes too much for Otto who is falling apart mentally during his journeying. Boschwitz has maintained a frenetic pace throughout the book, so we the readers can totally understand why Otto eventually has a breakdown. The book puts such a human face on the challenges and dangers endured by the Jewish people in Germany beginning from the one day of Kristallnacht in November of 1938 until the end of the war. It's a fairly quick read, but not necessarily an easy one as we follow Otto around Germany while he's running for his life. Show Less
LibraryThing member yarb
Otto Silbermann, a Jew who doesn't look Jewish, is overtaken by events in 1938 and finds himself a refugee in his own country, his only place of relative security the railway network. Prevented from taking lodgings or a hotel room by the large 'J' in his passport, he spends his days and nights
This is a propulsive story and the unraveling of its hero's mental state in tandem with the ordered society he's familiar with is hard to look away from.
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shuttling back and forth from Berlin to Aachen to Dortmund to Munich to Berlin etc. with a briefcase full of cash — an Albatross in his situation, but all he could salvage after being shanghaied by his business partner — and an unwieldy suitcase containing a few valuable possessions. He wants to get to Paris, where his somewhat useless son resides, but that isn't going to be easy.This is a propulsive story and the unraveling of its hero's mental state in tandem with the ordered society he's familiar with is hard to look away from.
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LibraryThing member infjsarah
It's very difficult to review this book because of what it is about and when it was written. It has both a fascination because the reader has knowledge of what happened next and some of the lines are too close to the truth for comfort. But I also got a little bored especially towards the end as the
But it also makes you think - about how you would react in such a terrible situation and whether you would behave better or worse.
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main character just gets on one train after another. The section about wanting an affair with the woman he meets is also just bizarre. Running for his life but time to think about that - Huh!But it also makes you think - about how you would react in such a terrible situation and whether you would behave better or worse.
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Subjects
Awards
British Book Award (Shortlist — 2022)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — 2022)
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1939
2021 (English revised edition)
ISBN
9789048846214