Non­fic­tion

Alex’s Wake: A Voy­age of Betray­al and a Jour­ney of Remembrance

  • Review
By – January 27, 2014

In his first book, The Inex­tin­guish­able Sym­pho­ny, Mar­tin Gold­smith recount­ed the his­to­ry of the Kul­tur­bund — a vir­tu­al ghet­to for Jew­ish cul­tur­al life in Nazi Ger­many — through the expe­ri­ences of his own par­ents. Gun­ther and Rose­marie Gold­schmidt, both musi­cians in the Kul­tur­bund, man­aged to escape to Amer­i­ca. The author’s grand­fa­ther and uncle were not so lucky.

Martin’s grand­fa­ther, Alex Gold­schmidt, had a knack for busi­ness, an eye for style, and a rep­u­ta­tion for hon­esty as the pro­pri­etor of fash­ion­able cloth­ing shops in Old­en­burg, in Low­er Sax­ony. His hand­some home near the cen­ter of town crowned his suc­cess, which was des­tined to be cut short. Deprived of his liveli­hood by the Nazis, he and his son Klaus Hel­mut fol­lowed a trail of tears that end­ed in Auschwitz in 1942.

In 1939 there was a ray of hope: the father and son were among the 937 pas­sen­gers on the voy­age of the damned,” the pas­sage of the MS St. Louis from Ham­burg to Havana. But Cuba refused to take in the refugees, as did the U.S., and the ship returned to Europe. For the next three dis­mal years Alex and Klaus were forced from camp to camp in France, until they were trans­port­ed to the Velo­drome d’Hiver in Paris and then to their deaths.

Reliv­ing their expe­ri­ences as he under­goes his own, Alex’s grand­son retraces their steps in Ger­many and France, bring­ing the past mov­ing­ly into the present with well-cho­sen details and great emo­tion­al hon­esty. Mar­tin Gold­smith has done more than shape a grip­ping and mov­ing sto­ry: He has res­cued these two vic­tims of the Nazis from obliv­ion. In the words of the prophet Isa­iah: V’natati lahem yad vashemI shall give them a memo­r­i­al and a name, a name that shall endure forever.”

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