8 ratings (3.75 avg)
7 reviews

Vic

Add friend

http://www.newportmiddlesbrough.co.uk

Vic’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (1)

currently-reading‎ (1)

read‎ (7)

Stats | More…

Vic is Currently Reading

Vic is currently reading

Two Brothers

by Ben Elton

bookshelves: currently-reading

read in December 2013

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Vic said: " I found this book so distressing that I had to put it down often. No fault of writer,Ben Elton. On the whole it is well written. Most literature and films about the Nazism focus on the 'Death Camps'. This book deals with the period which led up to th I found this book so distressing that I had to put it down often. No fault of writer,Ben Elton. On the whole it is well written. Most literature and films about the Nazism focus on the 'Death Camps'. This book deals with the period which led up to the 'Final solution'. It shows how a whole population of an allegedly civilised country was culturally conditioned into acquiesing in the persecutions which led to the Holocaust. The daily humiliations of Jews by thugs whose need to abuse and hurt was legitimised by a national ideology is bad enough but almost as sickening is the way Jews found former friends and colleagues turning against them. Having served four years in the trenches, fighting for the country they believed was their country, counted for nothing if you were a Jew.You were stripped of any medals and not allowed to use any rank title. (An historical fact..the officer who recommended Hitler for the Iron Cross in the first world war was Jewish). The central characters are four youngsters. A Jewish boy with an adopted gentile brother and two girls, one a Jewish girl from a rich family used to the good things of life ,and a working class gentile girl with an absolute faith in communism and Joseph Stalin. These four friends cooperate to create a strategy to survive Nazism. In part the story is told in retrospect by one of the brothers who escaped to England and is now a civil servant in the Foreign Office. It is 1956 and he has received a letter from one of the girls now in East Germany wanting to meet him. MI5 want him to go knowing that the sender of the letter is now an agent in the East German Secret Police, the Stasi. Part of the suspense is in wondering which of the two girls it is.

This would make a good film. It would spread the message to a wider public than the readership of this book. To me it shows you cannot make even the slightest concession to any cultural trend which belittles and demeans any group of fellow human beings. We tend to rail about 'political correctness' but jokes and caricatures were important weapons in the Nazi propaganda armoury conditioning the population to accept the persecutions

It is a work of fiction but Ben Elton is able to draw on his own family's experience. His father was born Ludwig Ehrenberg into a secular German Jewish family. The family escaped to England and Ludwig's brother,Godfried, joined the British Army and, for protection in the event of capture by the Germans, Anglicised his name to Godfrey Elton. Ben Elton's father followed suit and became Lewis Elton. The brothers actually had an adopted gentile cousin, Heinz Ehrenberg who did fight in the Wehrmacht. One interesting sideline is that Godfrey Elton, had great regard for the army in which he had served, was quite upset about Ben Elton's savage satire of the British Army in WW1 "Blackadder Goes Forth".

The one criticism I have is of the dialogue. The speech seems to be very much late 20c/21c English, replete with frequent crude language. I'm not convinced in that day and age and in that social class such language would be the norm. ...more "

Dec 11, 2013 10:56AM · see review