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5 comments about The Forger: An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin.

1. This is the breathtaking--literally breath taking--true story of the author's years living as an undocumented Jew in Berlin during the Nazi madness. Spared initially by his skilled-labor designation for work in a war factory, soon even that was not enough to save him from the order that he be evacuated to the East, code for the concentration camps. Already he had seen his parents, grandmother, and aunt and uncle off on the train. Thus, it is time for him to go underground.
   
   Underground, however, for Schonhaus does not mean invisibility. Indeed, he is the most visible invisible person imaginable, eating in restaurants packed with high-ranking Nazis, for example, on the theory that such would be the last place to look for a Jew. Theory is fine on paper, but in real life it takes either a madman or a fool. The author is a bit of both and lucky beyond reason.
   
   Trained as a graphic artist, Schonhaus is asked one day whether he can copy a Nazi stamp on some papers. He can, and soon he is working with anti-Nazi non-Jews and forging all manner of documents. Fully aware of what fate awaits him (and his colleagues) if he is caught, he carries on with almost youthful bravado. Indeed, it is this insouciance that is at the heart of his numerous heart-pounding near disasters and his brilliant bluffs that allow him to escape over and over again.
   
   Written decades after he lived the adventure, The Forger is a series of vignettes that concludes with Schonhaus's several-day bicycle ride in broad daylight down highways and through checkpoints--miles and miles and miles--from Berlin to Switzerland. He crossed that border in 1943 and still lives in that country. Steve McQueen could not have done it better, even with the motorcycle.



2. I was VERY disappointed in this book. One has to read half of the book before finding any information on his experience as a forger of documents. There is too much information on his female conquests, one of whom was a German officer's wife. Those exploits added nothing to the story, were unnecessary and detracted from the main theme. It's a shame he had to use half of the book for this sort of thing before getting to the main gist.



3. The Forger is a story that has been written many times over. The "Last Jews In Berlin," by Leonard Gross, comes to mind, although being presented in the first person increases its poignancy. Schonhaus' characterization of himself is quite credible, and it must be assumed that the original German version must read well. Unfortunately, the English translation is not as good as it could be. Finally, Cioma's crossing the Suisse border was rendered as being much too easy. The reader gets the impression that the author was in a hurry to complete the story.



4. The writing style is very choppy, doesn't flow. The story is very good, though!



5. Holocaust memoirs are big business and range from the highly erudite, acute and sentient observations of a "favored Jew" (Victor Klemperer), the exquisitely dangerous role of an active resister (Jan Valtin) to the inane (this book) with everything in between. As the book's subtitle suggests, this is an "extraordinary story of survival in wartime Berlin".
   
   Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this memoir is the author's total lack of perspective and oblivious unconcern about his life. He has the slightly sociopathic character of a petty criminal operating in a democracy, wherein the worst possible outcome would be a few years in jail (where he could further perfect his methods). In this case, however, the undoubted outcome of his apprehension would be a grizzly death in the hands of the Gestapo: document forgery would certainly command the specific attention of the SD and it's most expert "interrogators". In comparison, not even a "train to the East" would be frightening. A few sessions in the Gestapo dungeon broke just about every man and that, most assuredly, is what the author would have faced. This fate would have been explicitly known by him (as proof see, for example, Eric Johnson's seminal work on the role of the Gestapo in maintaining domestic security before and during the War), yet the author suggests that he is (or was) blithely (and foolishly) unconcerned. Frankly, only a complete fool would caper about as he did, even allowing for the theory that the best place to hide is "out in the open". I suspect the author's recollections have been massaged for the sake of improved sales.
   
   The book is a "quick read" and the reader's interest is maintained, despite the pre-ordained good outcome (to wit, he escapes and lives happily ever after and writes this book!). I was reminded of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories (flirting with danger and invested with much drama and decadence), but those adventures took place in the (relative) safety of the Weimar Republic.
   
   Perhaps the author's duplicity, which allowed him to prosper and even enjoy capering about amidst the dire perils for Jews in wartime Germany persists in this book: he hints that, maybe, with a little "luck and pluck" (a la Horatio Alger) everyone could have avoided The East.

1 comments about The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death.

1. Probably one of the best non-fiction accounts of not only a couple of interesting murder plots, but it throws in many of the totally wierd Mormon historical accounts of their religon. Fantastic reading, even if you are a Mormon.