The Journal of Helene Berr

The first flavor of The Journal of Hélène Berr is a young woman's Paris in 1942. Lingering over coffee with friends at sidewalk cafés. Browsing paintings and books in open-air stalls. Memories of my own time there stirred as I read, for Hélène's neighborhood was the famous Latin Quarter. She studied at the Sorbonne, then walked home along the Seine. Her prominent family lived in the artistic and intellectual center of Paris. Hélène was cultivated, intelligent, a fine musician and a gifted writer. It says something important about her that the first entry in this journal is about going to the home of a famous writer, Paul Valéry. He had inscribed a book for her, which she received as a treasure. Hélène memorialized, "a joy that confirmed my self-confidence.... I walked home feeling gently triumphant about what my parents would say and with the impression that what is extraordinary is real, and that the real is extraordinary." Extraordinary, indeed. Nazi boots were sounding on the Paris cobbles, and Hélène was Jewish. Nothing would remain unchanged, nothing was ordinary. Yet everyday life hobbled on. Hélène was a graduate student in English literature, still living with her parents. At first, her journal centered on girlish romance, books, music, family and friends. Yet as her outer life grew more restricted, she explored larger moral questions and small human pleasures, the common passions and ideals of the young. And Hélène revealed a stunning awareness, as she chose not to flee what she clearly saw approaching. Deportations and yellow stars and "the monotony of anguish" had their impact. She joined an underground group working to save Jewish orphans. Despite danger, grief and exhaustion, she wrote. She bore witness. Reading Hélène's memories, I am there with her, "All that now seems strangely close and strangely distant. ... It's because the day is no longer entirely Present but not yet quite Past. The silence rustles with memories and images." Hélène certainly wanted her journal to survive as a momento. But like other Jewish writers (Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, Irène Némirovsky and Etty Hillesum come to mind), she also wrote her personal experience because she believed that if people knew, they would understand, and when they truly understood, it would never happen again. Nothing about Hélène's story feels like you've heard it before. Not even the Nazi horrors. It's a fresh tale of growing up, of first love and first work and becoming a compassionate woman. And it's more. We keep her alive in the world by hearing her memories. And we nurture her dream, for by her words we can know what she knew, we can understand, and even be part of what keeps that tragic ending from happening again. by Susan Schoch for Story Circle Book Reviews reviewing books by, for, and about women

This was so heroic of her to write this, and I am so glad this book was published. She was such a brave young person who faced these horrible, horrific events that sadly actually happened.

There is no shortage of books on the Holocaust. We have, of course, the diary of Anne Frank, which appears to be the definitive nonfiction work recording World War II. It always seems more difficult, though, to find out what the war was like in France, as most accounts by or about Jews seem to focus on eastern Europe. Hélène Berr was a French university student at the time of the war. A violin player and student of English literature, she wrote a journal that by any account would be considered an accomplishment in style, literary analysis and flow. Her prose is beautiful, and you almost forget that you are reading about the Holocaust, as it is just as interesting to read her thoughts on music and literature. Again, a comparison with Anne Frank seems the best way to illustrate Berr's own journal. Frank lived in the Secret Annex and had nothing else to do but write for long hours in her diary. Once she heard that diaries were going to be collected after the war, she even went back and began to edit it with the intent of publication. It was written because she was a regular girl who kept a journal whenever she had the free time. Not everyone knows what it feels like to live in Nazi-occupied Paris, but more of us do know what it feels like to be in love with two people at once or to be frustrated with your family, friends or schoolwork. In that basic humanity, we can insert ourselves immediately into Berr's world, and then we follow her into the darker times, as the Gestapo gain more and more control over it. Berr's family struggles to hold on when her father is taken to a prison. The man she loves is forced to flee France for his safety, and she watches as friends and neighbors are taken by the Gestapo to various prisons and camps. She herself seems lucky enough, but even her education and life are deeply affected by the presence of Hitler's police in her city. I struggle in my own reading of Holocaust literature because I don't want to seem morbid or as if I enjoy descriptions of death and inhumane treatment. Anyone who has read a book or seen a movie probably has had to take in more than enough descriptions of Nazi treatment of Jews and others. But we continue to read so that we don't forget, and because each account gives us a little something different. THE JOURNAL OF HELENE BERR seems more hopeful, partly because of its unique narrator. Berr, who was Jewish, was able to go on with her daily life for much longer than others, and because of that, we see a more realistic, young girl reaction to the ways her life was changed. How horrible it is to wear an ugly yellow star on all of your fashionable clothing. How terrible it is when you can't be mean to your mother, because she is the one who is keeping the family together while your father is in prison. Berr's thoughts seem more within reach than others, if just because it is easier not to have to fathom so many horrific experiences at death and concentration camps. THE JOURNAL OF HELENE BERR

I pre-ordered this book for my father and although I have not read it, he tells me that he is really enjoying it for all the insight that he is receiving. I would recommend it.