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June 1, 2012 in Library Corner
By Robin Jacobson
Seventy years ago this July, a young Jewish girl and her family went into hiding. Fleeing the Nazis, they took refuge in a secret Amsterdam attic where the girl would pen an immortal diary. Today, Anne Frank is revered as a tragic heroine by millions, many of them young people born long after World War II. Nonetheless, in provocative, new Jewish fiction, two gifted young authors daringly question whether American Jews are obsessed with Anne Frank, whether the Holocaust has become too central to Jewish identity, and whether Holocaust education has overshadowed all Jewish education. This summer, try What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander and Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is the title story of Nathan Englander’s new collection of short stories. In this small gem, both comic and disturbing, Englander writes of a reunion between two American Jewish couples: an ultra-Orthodox couple, who made aliyah to Israel, and their hosts, who are secular Florida Jews.
Initially awkward with each other, the couples loosen up considerably as they down shots of vodka. Mark, the Orthodox husband, accuses American Jews of being obsessed with the Holocaust, declaring, “You can’t build Judaism only on the foundation of one horrible crime.” Debbie, a secular Jew, confesses to playing a morbid “Anne Frank game,” in which she mentally reviews her non-Jewish friends and speculates whether this one or that one would hide her if there were an American holocaust. Soon, the foursome is playing the grim game, which turns piercingly personal when the husbands pretend to be Christian and ask their Jewish wives if they trust that the husbands will hide them, whatever the risk.
In Hope: A Tragedy, Shalom Auslander plays a different Anne Frank game. This darkly zany novel imagines that Anne Frank survived the Holocaust. She has been hiding in the attic of an upstate New York farmhouse for decades, ever since the publisher of Anne’s wartime diary warned her to “stay dead.” Anne hopes to resurface after she completes her novel, the labor of her post-war life, but she struggles with writer’s block. She is depressingly aware that the blockbuster Diary of a Young Girl, which has sold 32 million copies, is a “tough act to follow.”
Solomon Kugel, the protagonist of Hope, discovers Anne – elderly, decrepit, and foul-smelling – while investigating strange noises emanating from the attic of his new home. Kugel has recently moved his family from New York City to rural, peaceful Stockton, seeking refuge from life’s dangers, conflicts, and tumult. A fretful, melancholy man, who routinely prepares and revises memorable “last words” to say on his deathbed, Kugel finds no peace in Stockton.
Instead, he is saddled with two batty, demanding old women: his mother (who moves in) and Anne (who came with the house). Kugel feels too guilty to evict either one. His ailing mother fantasizes that she survived concentration camps (although she actually enjoyed a comfortable American childhood), and Anne really is a Holocaust survivor (even if she is supposed to be dead). Kugel fearfully imagines the news headlines if he kicks Anne out of the house: Brutalized by Nazis, Tossed Out by a Jew.
Meanwhile Kugel’s wife threatens to leave him, complaining that he cares more for the old crones than for his wife and child. This outrageous book reads like a fast-paced, off-color, stand-up comedy routine – totally irreverent, often offensive, and wickedly funny.
