After reading a compelling review that left me with a tear in my eye about Chocolate Cake With Hitler, which can be found here, I decided to hunt it down. I just finished it and I know the story will haunt me for a long, long time.
Chocolate Cake With Hitler is historical fiction, written by Emma Craigie, and takes place in Hitler’s bunker during the last 10 days of WWII. It is told through the voice of twelve year old Helga Goebbels, the oldest daughter of Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda and right hand man to Hitler. Helga speaks of her days in the bunker, with flashbacks to her earlier days as the war machine grinds forward.
Because of her father’s postion, Helga and her brother and sisters are sheltered from the horrors of the war, but, throughout the book there are clues. The sudden disappearance of a young Jewish friend that Helga sneaks off to meet. The “thunder” in the background, that Helga suspects is bombing. The erratic behavior of her father. The hint of affairs of both of her parents.
Then, the bunker, where the children are summoned to, to “be safe” as the Russians advance on Berlin. They are the only children in the Bunker, her parents refusing to send them to safety.
The story is based on fact. We know that Russian soldiers found the six Goebbels children lying abed in their white bedclothes, the girls with ribbons in their hair, all in row, poisoned, as the bunker is stormed. We know that Helga is the only one who had bruises on her face, supposedly because she resisted the crushed cyanide forced into her mouth. We know her mother, Magda, killed them, and that her parents steadfastly refused to send them to safety. We know from their letters and diaries that they felt their children better off dead than in a world without “Uncle Leader”. We know all this, yet the fictionalized story through the perspective of a young girl, on the verge of becoming a woman, is a devastatingly haunting story, sparse and well told.
Knowing all this history and being so moved by Rachel’s poignant review, I was still stunned at the end. I put the book down, face down, and I walked away, feeling grief stricken at the horror of it all. The clues throughout of Helga’s story; premonitions of her father’s behavior, her grandmother’s stories of an earlier life with a Jewish husband and friends and daughter Magda’s young Jewish love. The propaganda so well contrived by Helga’s father, so well documented on the Nazi control over the arts and the media, that led to the deaths of millions. Millions of innocents, all at the hands of the Nazis, including, in the end, Goebbels’ own children, alone on a bed in a bunker, miles under Berlin.
Emma Craigie tells the story well. It is not easy to tell a story from the prospective of a child. A part of me wishes I had not read the book, Chocolate Cake With Hitler. It will stay with me for a long, long time, like Sophie’s Choice and QBVII and Hiroshima. That stunned feeling I had when I read the short story, “The Lottery”, in high school.
It is good to be stunned by the horrors of war at the end of May, when we honor our soldiers on Memorial Day. Perhaps there was a reason I kept the book for a while before finally reading it this last week in May. I did not plan it that way – at least not consciously – but it is the way it played out for me a I sat, for just a few days, with this small book on my lap and a lump in my throat as I turned the last pages of Chocolate Cake With Hitler.
It is yet another coincidence that I stumbled upon a holocaust book this week myself and was planning to reread it this weekend. I took it from my classroom shelf. Have you ever read Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine. It is about a child’s suitcase that arrived at a Holocaust museum in Japan. The curator follows clues to find out about Hana Brady. It is an interesting journey. I would be careful with very sensitive children.
Now you’ve added another book to my reading list. 🙂
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I have heard of Hana’s Suitcase, but, haven’t read it. It is interesting that the suitcase and Hana’s story finds its way to Japan. Now we both have another book for the TBR list. My, that list keeps growing. I hope it always does.
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I can see how this book would be very interesting to read and based upon what you’ve said here it sounds well written, but at the same time I don’t know if I want it in my head, especially knowing it’s based on a true story. And, like you, The Lottery hauted me for a very long time after I read it.
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It is well written, Janet, and it you should decide to read it, I am sure it will remain with you. I was trying to remember who wrote The Lottery and refraining from googling it. Do you remember?
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Was it Shirley Jackson?… ok…. I googled it…. !
I read that book when I lived in DeKalb while attending NIU. After that book the town of DeKalb was even creepier than usual to me, it reminded me so much of the town in the book!
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That’s two books I’ll have to check out! Thanks for the review on Chocolate Cake and I’ll have to find The Lottery – never heard of it but it’s obviously good!
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You are welcome. I enjoy hearing from you, Mrs. Twiddle, there in the UK.
The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. It was originally penned for the New Yorker Magazine in 1948 and created quite a stir at the time. Since then, it has been, may still be, used in school literature classes. I first read it in an American Literature class when I was a sophomore, which would have put me at about 16 or so. It shocked me when I read it as a homework assignment. I was stunned at the ending, which is so matter-of-fact. There was a deep discussion the next day in class as to the symbolism, style, meaning, etc. I was in an honors class and my fellow students were so intense and so bright.
The story is told is modern times, quite conversational in style, and the action is held in the town square. A lottery is held every year. The person whose paper is chosen meets a violent fate. It is a benign tale with a brutal ending. I think it says a great deal about societies and rituals and what we all do as a people. I did find the story online at http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html. I just read it again and it still stuns me and makes me wonder at the horrors people do and accept as commonplace. Of course, we do not stone people here, but we do harm them in other ways through the media and technology.
Now, I’ve practically told you the whole story. Do look it up online or find a book there in the UK of American short stories.
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Wow! I just read it, thanks so much for posting the link. Isn’t it amazing the things you find out and the new things you’re introduced to just by wandering around blogs! 🙂 Many thanks!
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You are welcome. Yes, I agree, it is amazing what and who we discover in the “blogosphere”. I have learned so much and “met” such nice folks from around the globe. I enjoy watching your garden grow there in the UK. Thanks for being a steady visitor.
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I’m so glad you picked this up. It’s haunting and powerful in so many ways and I certainly couldn’t stop thinking about those poor children for a long while afterwards. Thank you for mentioning my review; yours was brilliant!
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I don’t think I would have read this if it had not been for your review. I, too, keep thinking about the children. It is always the children that suffer the most in war, no matter what side, no matter what cause.
I was thinking about this again last night and suddenly remembering the very first pages in which Helga, a toddler?, is recalling a memory of her mother forcing her to eat something, holding her hands down, forcing the spoon in her mouth. I could not get this scene out of my mind. The foreboding that was there in the very first pages.
You are quite welcome and I thank you. I hope some who read this here will visit your blog as well.
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Reblogged this on emmacraigie.
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