Alex’s Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal
and a Journey of Remembrance. By Martin Goldsmith. Da Capo. $25.99.
Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a
Revolution. By Nathaniel Philbrick. Penguin. $18.
Among some people, there
seems to be an insatiable desire for more and more books about details of World
War II, resulting in the production of a steady stream of such books – most of
them highly detailed and well-meaning. For those preoccupied with the war and
its effects, especially those with a strong personal stake in the war’s events
and its outcome, these books can be salutary experiences. But they are very
clearly niche productions – for many of today’s readers, a war that ended
nearly 70 years ago is simply not a significant factor in everyday life. Alex’s Wake is a perfect example of a
book written by someone with a strong personal attachment to wartime events,
for readers feeling an equally strong involvement in the war. The book
chronicles the personal journey of author Martin Goldsmith, who apparently
feels guilty because he did not suffer and die in the war, which ended seven
years before his birth. To assuage that guilt, he decides to retrace the journey
taken by two doomed members of his family: his grandfather, Alexander
Goldschmidt, and Alexander’s son, Helmut. Make no mistake: this is a book about
a harrowing journey, or rather two of them – the one long ago and the one
Goldsmith undertakes. Alexander and Helmut were passengers aboard the MS St. Louis, which sailed from Hamburg
in May 1939 bearing Jewish refugees escaping from Nazi Germany. The world did
not yet know all that was going on in Hitler’s Third Reich, or at least was not
yet galvanized against it, and the ship, which headed for Havana, Cuba, was
denied landing rights there. So the 900 refugees journeyed to Canada and the
United States – but were refused admission by both countries and forced to
return to Europe. There was no World War II yet – Hitler’s invasion of Poland
did not occur until September 1 – but the Nazi campaign against the Jews was
gathering momentum, and both Alexander and Helmut were caught up in it, sent to
Auschwitz, and eventually killed in the gas chambers there. This was a tragedy
of the time – one among millions – and it is certainly comprehensible that
Goldsmith wants to understand it as part of his family history. His reasons for
feeling uncomfortable, even guilty, about his own solid and apparently happy
life, are harder to fathom. But they are the driving force behind the six-week
journey that Goldsmith takes through France, Germany and Poland, attempting to
follow the route of Alexander and Helmut and lay to rest, in his own mind, the
ghosts of these people he never knew. Goldsmith’s trip eventually takes him,
intentionally and inevitably, to Auschwitz, a site that produces intense
emotion even among people who have no personal connection with it. It then
takes him, at the end, to his grandfather’s family home, where the unveiling of
a memorial plaque represents a triumph of sorts and provides Goldsmith with the
comfort he has been seeking. Alex’s Wake
is unfailingly well-meaning, carefully researched and skillfully written. It is
clearly a work with considerable meaning for its author and, by extension, for
those who share a similar family history and similar connections with the
Second World War. For other potential readers, though, it will be curiously
uninvolving. Those unfamiliar with the story of the MS St. Louis, which is not an especially well-known one, will find
some matters of interest here; those familiar with the depredations of war in
general and World War II in particular will find confirmatory material aplenty
– but no more than in many, many other books about the war and its impact on
families and the world as a whole. Alex’s
Wake is a personal memoir that makes little attempt to reach out to anyone
who does not already share the background that led Goldsmith to his quest – a
self-limiting, self-limited work that will have considerable meaning for a few
readers but very little for many others.
Americans as a whole might
be expected to take more interest in Bunker
Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution, originally published last year and now
available in paperback. This is, after all, a book about one of the seminal
events in the establishment of an independent United States. But as a nation,
the U.S. tends not to be very inwardly focused or very past-oriented.
Historians such as Nathaniel Philbrick therefore doom themselves to serious
consideration by only a small portion of the population at large, even when
writing books that are not intended as academic exercises. In the case of Bunker Hill, George Washington, John
Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and other well-known Revolutionary War
figures do appear, but the central character is Joseph Warren, a 33-year-old
physician who was largely responsible for fomenting rebellion and fanning its
flames when they gave every indication of flickering out. Philbrick not only
uses primary sources to excellent effect here but also absorbs some of the
rhetorical flourishes of the 18th century and adapts them into a
style for the 21st. Thus: “In the fall Warren had worked to soothe
the outrage of the country people. By the spring, he was desperately attempting
to inject some life into what had become a dangerously listless Provincial
Congress. …What [Warren’s medical apprentice William] Eustis and other patriots
took to be Warren’s natural and laudatory adjustment to the increasingly
perilous times was seen by loyalists as part of a highly calculated strategy.”
Warren was as active in political circles – and rabble-rousing – as in military
confrontations. His pronouncements were scarcely moderate, as in one letter he
wrote for widespread distribution, seeking recruits for the provincial army.
“‘Our all is at stake,’ he wrote. ‘Death and devastation are the instant
consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may
deluge your country in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your
posterity who may survive the carnage.’” Warren looms so large in Philbrick’s
narrative that the actual Battle of Bunker Hill – in which Warren was killed –
nearly brings Bunker Hill to a
screeching halt. After the battle, it was Washington who was left to assemble
the militiamen of Warren’s command into an army that would withstand the
British, and it is to Washington and other well-known figures of the time that
Philbrick turns his attention after Warren’s death. This is, of course, a
matter of historical necessity, but Bunker
Hill becomes less interesting when it happens. And Philbrick knows this:
his narrative continues for only another few dozen pages, with the almost-100-page
balance of the nearly-400-page paperback devoted to extended and somewhat
overdone notes, a very extensive bibliography in very small type, and an index.
Near the end of the narrative portion of Bunker
Hill, Philbrick quotes Thomas Paine’s famous words from Common Sense: “The birthday of a new
world is at hand.” This was hyperbole, but Philbrick does his best to show in
what way the words were true for the fledgling United States. It is worth
remembering that American independence was not easily won: the American
Revolution was a six-year war, as modern Americans often do not realize, and
even though the battles ended in 1781, the Treaty of Paris was not signed until
1783, eight years after hostilities began. But by the time of Warren’s death a
few days after his 34th birthday, the path to the future was already
becoming clear. It is a shame that so few 21st-century residents of
the United States are aware of the role played by patriots such as Joseph
Warren in making their modern way of life possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment