Ebook301 pages5 hours
This Place Holds No Fear
By Monika Held
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Summoned from Vienna to Frankfurt to testify at the Auschwitz trials, Heiner meets Lena, who is working at the court as a translator. During the trial, he describes his experiences of being deported to Auschwitz as a young man. Afterward, the two begin a cautious love affair, but both are unsure whether their feelings will be strong enough to persevere in the shadow of his earlier ordeals. Heiner knows that if they are to stay together, Lena will have to accept the memories of Auschwitz that mark him and build a new life amid the debris of his past.
In this moving novel, Monika Held draws on first-hand reports by Auschwitz survivors to paint an emotive picture of life and love governed by trauma. Throughout, Heiner’s suffering is omnipresent, and Lena’s struggle to hold her own in a relationship dominated by his past is deeply moving. His stories are horrific and disturbing, but they are a part of his identity; he cannot survive without them. And slowly, Lena learns to cherish her own past despite its apparent insignificance.
With its sensitive treatment of two people struggling to confront the Holocaust’s atrocities from very different vantage points, This Place Holds No Fear is a powerful novel of finding love after experiencing unimaginable loss.
In this moving novel, Monika Held draws on first-hand reports by Auschwitz survivors to paint an emotive picture of life and love governed by trauma. Throughout, Heiner’s suffering is omnipresent, and Lena’s struggle to hold her own in a relationship dominated by his past is deeply moving. His stories are horrific and disturbing, but they are a part of his identity; he cannot survive without them. And slowly, Lena learns to cherish her own past despite its apparent insignificance.
With its sensitive treatment of two people struggling to confront the Holocaust’s atrocities from very different vantage points, This Place Holds No Fear is a powerful novel of finding love after experiencing unimaginable loss.
Related to This Place Holds No Fear
Related ebooks
Fairies and Fusiliers (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Sandglass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGoodnight Father Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lemon Hound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Purchased Bride Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Luminous Heart of Jonah S. Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Sly Company of People Who Care: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Father was a Man on Land and a Whale in the Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYoung Turk: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Pathless Sky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEveryman's Rules for Scientific Living: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Hours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oranging of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Palace of Pearls Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Could Live Here: A Travel Memoir of Home and Belonging Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetess Counts to 100 and Bows Out: Selected Poems by Ana Enriqueta Terán Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rear-View Mirrors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEco-dementia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting Through the Apocalypse: Pandemic Poetry and Prose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Age of Orphans: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last Days of the National Costume Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barks and Purrs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnne of Avonlea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unpacking The Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lesser Fields Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYears, Months, and Days Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Dreaming Into Being... Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Jewish Fiction For You
Our Darkest Night: A Novel of Italy and the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost Keeper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Painted Bird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman, The Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Postcard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Orphan #8: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Another Time: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weight Of Ink Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Thief: A Novel by Markus Zusak | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ben-Hur: The Novel That Inspired the Epic Movie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chosen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5JEWISH FAIRY TALES and LEGENDS - 27 folk and fairy tales from the Talmud Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnce We Were Brothers: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shmutz: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bookish People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Oppermanns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pomegranate Gate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Jew in Prague Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Marriage of Opposites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sacrifice of Tamar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Saw Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Laughter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Yellow Bird Sings: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ecstasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Midwife of Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wolf and the Woodsman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for This Place Holds No Fear
Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
8 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a touching story about the life that came after Auschwitz; the way recovery happens, even when we won't forget or let go, even when we hold on to our pain with both hands. Recovery happens, but it's different. It brought a whole new understanding of Auschwitz and what it meant to have been there. Most of what I've seen about Auschwitz and the concentration camps focus on those perpetrating the horrors and shows the prisoners as others. Here, the Nazi's are the other and the US is not even involved. It's not about liberation or war, it's about marriage and dealing with what comes later.
The effect that the experience at Auschwitz has on the characters in this book and those who meet them after is an entirely different narrative than we're used to in the US. Sort of. It's a narrative of PTSD, which we generally reserve for veterans. The difference makes this book about the way people keep their pain close to them, how they learn to depend on it. It's the way they commiserate amongst themselves and remember together and the way that is its own sort of healing. It's in the way they know things about themselves and each other that you only learn in those kinds of circumstances and surprises that happen when everyone attempts to return to "normal life".
Lena is our window into Heiner's world. She's the every woman who had nothing to do with Auschwitz and doesn't understand how such horrible things could happen. She doesn't appreciate the strange humor of the survivors but she loves them anyway. She also serves as the reason Heiner and his friends get to tell stories and reminisce about when they met. Her reaction is our reaction.
But the book isn't just about Heiner or Lena or some survivors of Auschwitz alone. Their lives are littered with more people than that, some of which were around before the war and others who they only knew after. Even those who don't seem that closely related at first lend depth and history to the story.
The character progression of both Heiner and Lena is remarkable. Each finds their way of dealing with everything. Their growth and the way they eventually ease into each other felt natural, like it would just happen that way. There was a force of will to help it along, but it wasn't made out to be so hard that it was not believable. Marriage sometimes takes a force of will, especially if it lasts as long as theirs. But the growth isn't just about their marriage, there's the way they deal with others as life goes on and Lena getting to know his friends. The tone of the book is beautifully nostalgic, even when they speak of horrible days. The nostalgia is because of each other, it's for each other.
I have to admit that I highlighted this book like I was going to be tested on it. There were so many lines that blew my mind, that changed the way I thought about everything involved with Auschwitz and it's few survivors. For me, it changed everything I thought I knew about Auschwitz. Since I read it on Scribd, the highlights aren't readily available but here are two quotes that were among my favorites:
They wrote down what they remembered, they spoke into microphones, yet what they'd experienced was not the same as what could be read or heard later. Their memories ought to be made into vaccines, to prevent the illnesses that had caused them.
and
They were silent, abandoned the subject, and then the fight would start all over again. She'd said just. It was that word that troubled him. Just because he was at Auschwitz. After endless debates, Lena lost her patience. Heiner, my dear, she said sharply, let me enlighten you on the word that's bothering you so much. Just is a small, embittered word with a difficult life. It has to push its way into sentences, even those where it isn't absolutely necessary, and imbue them with new meaning. First: The just in my sentence is meant in the sense of "although," and does not diminish your friend's suffering. What I wanted to say was: Although he was at Auschwitz back then, I don't have to accept it when he talks nonsense today.
And then she goes on to explain all the other ways that "just" is used because the book is every bit as much about marriage as being a survivor.
Book preview
This Place Holds No Fear - Monika Held
S2^ book_preview_excerpt.html |ۮFݯP{=$鞣Ng0YdVU$ˮ~
̗͟xI>2hvWqY"2/W_/X]:j^RjT>CS)P\ġZihsKn\,UNqSU֮T}j9d;U};4
s՞SX0U
Ӑiy۹YP0|i5YjmM)U;WS}FW\'m.qcwr8ꯡR)nI~^#do뿧u9j+FJaAXYJTK\bUK7}YncXai@+ۓtQ)a.{i s6ؖc"~#iڂZ"Rx] *q~H]^_(c.p)Xo
ü`,by|07Jt^A!zB 5sM)-G(*8:Av:xK^S@@V{}4iaW:TG@rl4;gLuPem:JLx
n5{k='> ^b%<:pͿF؞3$(wak\oygb;?=3XDcj0-O??ǽ) K[5օ '1&K,vL5ew|ԥ:rOwX3[vp~m,K@kizȰ;joܪY?vASwqF44v A חk0mun~s=' &' saYiWuq:v &Ok vn&?aB.*bh#t)[1Wi8YBb0F}}]Kh
ˊd vv# WGB|G,5]lԄ=8V#6J qG2ݱ^J l3X*N
)0lI2 v@D$[Sduûؾ٘)gi;DP3P
a2gT#˥w1PhpQp|y&Dx-MR`6Cbt4Q٘:[Tij'&jӏ\Gu:Az[t+Bo;e[o|gZI~?49`^5pDs-IOa :awԤc+BaòIz ([>e{8pwNzntWdB2 ͟{xf_{3Mj<<f/T%`RvlDF`KN?4cxC@v_H=`^q *g!>^Zo
̪*ݹ))P87@X@L
E:fꩾthC
O0~wa08ApPeA=L6pLubgNr:Pް/Tm'5.oK'iJ_G
İM:. c9"=`zezwg-zxg]vI!(}BYX]6 s
X^n-hWuqg{/.9ct fjOwnŐaiO~H
aJQ)ks:"!ļypLH>_O'* [*w='Ƕ>,$J3ܔ r퓲&q@xn l6 5к%-aqAr< -5==6՜sC\BEXnWOxD[B$ɠr t+:eKpd
8J,Na뵾"A,R-vUjNtú~9e&Z/s^az&hSgYLC!LluZ#BBC.-t(?0K`C,;