Rebecca Moll's Blog - Posts Tagged "redemption"
Gerta by Katerina Tuckova, a Book Review by Rebecca Moll
Break the cycle and come full circle...
Heart-wrenchingly true to the many German-Czech lives branded enemies upon the end of the Nazi regime, this story brings home the adage that hate begets hate and evil, evil. No longer the oppressor, Germans and those of German-Czech descent, even German sympathizers of Czech ethnicity, were suddenly faced with expulsion, torture, and cruelty.
Underlining the baseness of our human condition, the duplicity of victim to victimizer, and the need for revenge before all else, Katerina Tuckova brings home the sufferings of war and reprisal through the life of one young woman, Gerta.
Spilt in two, German father Czech mother, like the very city and country she loves, Gerta, a young mother, witnesses and suffers unspeakable horrors, injustice, and expulsion, surviving by sheer courage and willpower and the promise she will one day return.
Written in the true sense of events, this story needs no embellishment. Lives lived such as Gerta, hundreds, thousands walked the same road, literally, with the few belongings they could carry, figuratively, a journey of lost loved ones, entire families, some, their very lives.
And although a compelling story such as this can tell itself, it takes a special hand to render the tone and tincture it so deserves. Katerina Tuckova brings Gerta to life, her plight and fight with the wide lens it warrants, allowing for both darkness and light, a light that illuminates both sides of the story. War is waged by few, but suffered by many. It spins a vicious cycle. Hate begets hate, evil, evil.
Gerta’s determination to return to life she loved, to protect her only daughter, pushes through time and space to spin a new cycle, where acknowledgement and atonement feed seeds of redemption that nurture the slow process of peace.
Well written, riveting, this story comes full circle over the span of three generations, leaving a legacy that will stay with you long after the last page.
Heart-wrenchingly true to the many German-Czech lives branded enemies upon the end of the Nazi regime, this story brings home the adage that hate begets hate and evil, evil. No longer the oppressor, Germans and those of German-Czech descent, even German sympathizers of Czech ethnicity, were suddenly faced with expulsion, torture, and cruelty.
Underlining the baseness of our human condition, the duplicity of victim to victimizer, and the need for revenge before all else, Katerina Tuckova brings home the sufferings of war and reprisal through the life of one young woman, Gerta.
Spilt in two, German father Czech mother, like the very city and country she loves, Gerta, a young mother, witnesses and suffers unspeakable horrors, injustice, and expulsion, surviving by sheer courage and willpower and the promise she will one day return.
Written in the true sense of events, this story needs no embellishment. Lives lived such as Gerta, hundreds, thousands walked the same road, literally, with the few belongings they could carry, figuratively, a journey of lost loved ones, entire families, some, their very lives.
And although a compelling story such as this can tell itself, it takes a special hand to render the tone and tincture it so deserves. Katerina Tuckova brings Gerta to life, her plight and fight with the wide lens it warrants, allowing for both darkness and light, a light that illuminates both sides of the story. War is waged by few, but suffered by many. It spins a vicious cycle. Hate begets hate, evil, evil.
Gerta’s determination to return to life she loved, to protect her only daughter, pushes through time and space to spin a new cycle, where acknowledgement and atonement feed seeds of redemption that nurture the slow process of peace.
Well written, riveting, this story comes full circle over the span of three generations, leaving a legacy that will stay with you long after the last page.
