Pondering The Postcard

 

The Postcard is a gripping, at times horrifying, moving novel by French author Anne Berest. It was written in 2021 and released in translation earlier this year. It is the story of members of a Jewish family across several generations living in a number of countries, including Russia, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Israel, and France. What makes it truly remarkable is that while the copyright page disclaimer describes this as a work of fiction, it is actually factually based on Anne Berest's relatives and the research of her mother and Berest herself. The image on the cover is a photograph of her great-aunt, a key figure in this drama.

The postcard of the title is an anonymous piece of correspondence which mysteriously arrives with a postmark dated years after it is written and an upside-down stamp. In block letters there are the names of the maternal and paternal great-grandparents who perished, and nothing more. 

I came close to abandoning the book partway along because the different generations are forced to address anti-semiticism in various settings and the family is changed forever because of the Holocaust. Although they are living in France when World War II begins the Nazis are thorough in their persecution in occupied countries and there is the complicity of the Vichy government and locals who are hostile toward Jews.

There is so much to digest in this oft-times grim drama, not the least of which are the efforts of this particular family to assimiliate, including giving up Jewish religious practice and changing names. Yet this doesn't matter to those bent on Jewish annihilation -- Jews are Jews. 

The novel also explores the apprehension of Jews, including the writer's grandmother and mother, throughout Europe following the war, knowing that they were often betrayed by neighbours and governments. In an NPR interview Berest observes:

 You have to understand the silence of the Jews in France after the Second World War, because after the war, they were afraid to speak out, because one must bear in mind that they were still living in fear because that fear was so ancient in Europe. They thought that the denunciations could start again. My grandmother, after the war, baptized my mother in a church to protect her. And many Jews did the same in France after the war. So in the book, I give the example of one of my friends whose parents changed their Jewish names to French names in the mid-'60s. It's incredible to think about it. It was the mid-'60s in France, and Jews wanted to change their names because they'd always say it can happen again.

There is a profound scene in the book when Anne, approaching age 40, attends a Passover Seder for the first time in her life. She does so with apprehension because of her ignorance about this ritual meal in the company of people who know that she is Jewish. It does become awkward yet she finds the experience to be rich with a meaning of which she has been deprived. 

The ending of the novel is extraordinary to the point of stretching credibility, yet it is based on fact. I encourage you to gird up your loins and read the award-winning The Postcard.