June 1, 2022
In an emotionally compelling and historically accurate fictionalized diary, Berlowitz uses Klara as a stand-in for her own ancestor who experienced the events presented. Beginning in Germany in 1925 and ending in Spain in 1938, readers see the changing world through the eyes of a Jewish woman who is a self-declared communist. As a girl visiting Spanish relatives, as a medical student in Spain, and as an activist in the Spanish Civil War, Klara, or Clara as she becomes, grows in experience, knowledge, and political acumen. The diary itself reflects her maturation with a change in writing style, and includes photos, clippings, and postcards in the pages. The format allows for an immediacy in the telling of events that might be less well-expressed in traditional prose. The violence and fear from the war in Spain combine with the rise of the Nazis in Germany. The diary essentially stops, much like a real diary of the time might, with information provided to pursue the historic events. This is an interesting and unique take on the period, and should be considered by public and academic libraries alike.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 1, 2022
A fictional diary chronicles the experience of a young German woman--a Communist and a Jew--fighting fascism in Spain. When Klara Philipsborn, a German living with her bourgeois family in Berlin, visits Spain in 1925, she experiences a "chemical shift" within herself, falling deeply in love with the place. A budding scientist with an interest in bacteriology, she's able to secure a position as a lab assistant at the University of Madrid with the help of a referral from Albert Einstein, making her only one of four females out of over 2,000 students. A self-professed Communist with a "Marxist heart," she becomes deeply involved in the leftist politics of Spain, and when Gen. Franco rises to power, she joins the Fifth Regiment, an "elite army of the people," to serve as a nurse and translator in the fight against fascism. Meanwhile, Hitler ascends back home in Germany during a time when "logic has been replaced by wishful thinking," a predicament that threatens her Jewish family, though her father stubbornly refuses to take the danger seriously. Berlowitz structures the entire tale as a series of journal entries composed by Klara replete with personal photographs--this generates an intimacy between the reader and Klara that results in a gripping immersion into the tale. The quotidian details of the entries and the granular accounts of the political scenes in both Spain and Germany, however, often slow the narrative to a crawl. Klara's experience of alienation is deep and profoundly moving. Unable to return home and live openly as a Jew, she feels compelled to hide her religious identity even from her compatriots in the Fifth Regiment. Her sense of utter outrage seems to sustain her except when it is overcome by episodes of despair and hopelessness, a poignant inner turmoil that, more than political drama, is the core of the novel. An affecting, historically astute novel.
COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (Online Review)