Edith Baer, Walk the Dark Streets. Frances Foster Books: New York, 1998. 280 pp. Hardcover. $18.00. ISBN 0-374-38229-8.

This sequel to the novel A Frost in the Night tells how Eva Bentheim, a Jewish girl, experiences Nazi rule in her home town of Thalstadt, a hypothetical small town anywhere in Germany.

The book begins with the year 1933, when Hitler was elected Chancellor. With each passing month, Jews and other persecuted groups experience increased restrictions as the noose tightens around their necks. In the midst of this horror, Eva must cope with the illness of her father, the escape of some friends and relatives while others are imprisoned, shunning by former “friends” and teachers, and the experience of first love.

During the horror of Kristallnacht, the “night of the broken glass”, the worst pogrom in German-Jewish history, Eva’s father is taken to prison. Afraid that he might get deported, Eva and her mother call on several persons in a desperate search for any possibility to free him.

Although they are successful at obtaining Mr. Bentheim’s release, both parents urge Eva to leave Germany. Thus begins a new struggle: the struggle for affidavits and visa coupled with Eva’s amazing feelings of doubt and guilt for “deserting” her parents.

The novel’s great strength and interest lie in various fascinating side plots that detail the gradual destruction of the tightly knit social network of Eva’s home town community and of her family itself.

Contrary to many other books on the Holocaust, Baer does not deal significantly with major political events. Rather, she relates the day-to-day events which, collectively, make up the fabric of family and community life under Nazi rule: One person exploits his own brother; zealous children in Nazi youth organizations inform on the parents of other children and pave the way for their arrest and possible deportation; small businesses go bankrupt; friends turn into enemies; janitors turn into spies; and one woman marries an unknown foreigner for the visa she needs to accompany him back to Holland. It is these and other everyday episodes that flesh out the novel and make it an excellent supplementary book for younger adults. Bear’s writing style is very engaging. The reader gets pulled into the text and cannot put the book down until the last page is turned.

Heinz Bösch
Austrian Gedenkdienst Intern