It was pretty good, it reminded me a lot of confederacy of dunces. Maybe because the author died before it was published and his mother had to finish it off. But then it was also was pretty surreal. It’s about a Jewish man, living in Berlin with his non-Jewish wife. He’s rich, owns a business and then Hitler happens and they start being arrested. He can’t get out of the country and so he starts just crossing the country on the trains, desperate to get out, getting more and more tired. It certainly had its own atmosphere.

Belangrijk en goed boek, maar als je het te langzaam leest, kun je b behoorlijk kriegelig worden.

Another tough read

"After all, she belongs to the times, she accepts them as they are, and she seems more than a match for them. Yes indeed, he thought, now getting angry: brutality plus romanticism. Ignorance plus insolence. She may have a motion-picture soul - that's the character of the times - but she is charming! Which is something that can't be said about the times."

A really good read made all the more fascinating by the story of Ulrich Boschwitz's real life and demise. Shame about the ending, in all the ways.

To kolejna z tych książek, których nie sposób oceniać czy "recenzować".
Jej waga i znaczenie, jej historia, historia autora ....
To ta sytuacja, kiedy najlepiej po prostu ... pomilczeć.
Rok 1938 ... tyle dekad ... wydawałoby się, że to już wszystko za nami...
A to coraz bardziej aktualne. Trzeba czytać by dobrze wiedzieć, dobrze zapamiętać, co nigdy więcej - i nigdzie - nie może się powtórzyć.

Decided to get a copy of this book after reading a report about it in the Guardian I think it was — felt sorry that the author had died so young and was curious to check it out. Turns out Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz wrote a cracking novel before his tragic end on a torpedoed passenger ship in 1942. The story basically concerns a Jewish merchant who overnight — after the infamous Kristallnacht — finds himself trying to get out of Germany. Easier said than done, even when he manages to recover some of his business wealth, albeit at a greatly knocked down rate. As he ducks and dives, "Silbermann" meets a variety of people few of whom can help him escape, and some of whom would arrest him if he had looked more obviously Jewish. It's chilling to see how a person is suddenly transformed, in Boschwitz's words, from subject to object. The protagonist is somewhat flawed but also has his good points; he is suitably complex, but all of this means nothing as he has been objectified by the Nazis: he is a Jew, and therefore an assumed public enemy. The Passenger is a brilliant novel, the only one I have read concerning this period in Germany written from the point of view of a German Jew, many of whom would die in concentration camps within a few short years of being rounded up in 1938. The book is unputdownable and includes a lot of engaging dialogue full of irony and at times anger. By the end of the story I felt deeply affected and full of admiration for the author. It's strange how this excellent and important work slipped into obscurity for so many years.

Beware the 'hailed' and 'remarkable' - this is just OK. It reads more like a British thriller from the time (think 39 steps, or the earlier riddle of the sands). That said, I'm sure it would have had more of an impact in 1939, but as a reader in 2021 I found it far from 'heart-stopping'. But, it is another window into the time.

3.5 Stars

These types of books always amaze me in many ways. This is a translation of a long considered lost German manuscript written by a man in 1939, from many of his own experiences at the dawn of WWII.

This is the story of a Jewish man Otto, living in Germany, as the crimes and discrimination towards the Jewish people start to mount in both frequency and severity. Upon realizing that he too is at risk of meeting an unfortunate fate, he sets out to escape Germany by train. He appears Arian by appearance, which helps his cause, as he is rarely suspected of his Jewish heritage.

The discrimination against him start to stack up though, initially coming from his former friends and business partners. Their true allegiance starts to show, and Otto is starting to feel the harsh realizations of his potential future. His business partner swindles him with little remorse and puts him in a position he is not familiar with. Otto considers himself a true German, having fought in the war for his county, and he struggles to come to terms with the collapse of his country around him.

The book was heartbreaking though informative. The first person narrative really brought me into the main characters thoughts and it was a very interesting read overall