Books: Austrian ghosts, a New Yorker’s joyride, intrigue in Istanbul

Darkenbloom - Eva Menasse (Scribe) 

The New Yorker’s review of Darkenbloom by Austrian journalist and author Eva Menasse is titled, “It’s a Typical Small-Town Novel. Except for the Nazis”. That’s a terrific encapsulation.

Menasse’s fictional town of Darkenbloom is based on Rechnitz, a real Austrian village on the Hungarian border where, as the end of the war loomed and the Russian army advanced, 200 Jewish forced labourers were massacred. Best to remove the evidence of Nazi complicity.

This story begins in 1985 as the sleepy inward-looking town finally finds itself facing the scrutiny of the outside world. Students from the city have set up a work camp to clear the overgrown neglected Jewish cemetery; a stranger with some link to the past has come asking questions; a body is uncovered in a farmer’s field; and East German refugees are gathering at the border. Even within the community, a young schoolteacher is determined to uncover the truth of those dark times. 

Most of the town’s residents want to turn a blind eye to their past complicity. Some benefited from the forced removal of their Jewish neighbours, such as the young worker at the grand Tuffer hotel who was able to assume ownership, or a recent medical graduate taking over the practice of the established doctor, and the poor landowner incorporating an adjoining orchard into his property.

All of these are rendered satirically, free of reference to the human tragedy that has allowed the annexation.

The actual massacre is barely alluded to. Menasse is more interested in the ways the inhabitants justified or stifled the events. It’s a microcosm of Austria, which was slow to reconcile its role in the war.