The Passenger

March 15, 2021
A desperate Jewish businessman finds moments of safety aboard the Deutsche Reichsbahn passenger train system in this recently rediscovered novel by an exile from Hitler's Germany. In the days following Kristallnacht, Otto Silbermann's life disintegrates. His apartment ransacked and his commercial relationships strained by newly emboldened anti-Semitism, Silbermann scrambles to gather what's left of his personal assets. Although risky, constant train travel becomes his best option. Zig-zagging across Nazi Germany, from Berlin to Hamburg, Dortmund, and Aachen, Silbermann converses with his fellow passengers, finding a few drops of compassion amidst a sea of cruelty and indifference. He clings to the hope that he might sneak or buy his way out of the country. But it eventually becomes clear that the freedom Silbermann feels while in motion is an illusion, and his options are increasingly grim. Originally published in 1938 under a pseudonym, Boschwitz's tale trembles with tension and eerily anticipates the central role the German train system would later play in the horrific logistics of the Holocaust. In a new translation, this remains a potent and uniquely rendered work of witness.

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Starred review from May 15, 2021
A newly rediscovered masterpiece set in the days following Kristallnacht. When pounding erupts at the front door of his Berlin apartment with voices crying out for his arrest, Otto Silbermann escapes out the back. It's Kristallnacht, 1938, and Silbermann, a wealthy, respectable, and--crucially--Jewish businessman doesn't know where to go. He takes a train, and then another. He goes from Berlin to Hamburg and then back to Berlin. He goes to Aachen and Dresden and Berlin once again. Days pass, and Silbermann is still on a train. His name is recognizably Jewish, so he avoids using it--no hotels for Silbermann, with their registration forms--but his face is not, and his bearing is so upright and respectable he doesn't seem particularly suspect. Still, he's in constant danger of arrest. In its dark absurdity, Boschwitz's brilliant novel recalls Kafka, particularly The Trial, in which threat looms like an edifice--and yet, reading, you're also struck by a panicked, choking laughter. And like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich, Silbermann thinks that by clinging to the last vestiges of middle-class life, he can avoid or outpace death. "Am I traveling?" Silbermann wonders. "No! I'm stuck in the same place, like a person who takes refuge in a cinema where he sits in his seat without moving as the films flicker away--and all the while his worries are lurking just outside the exit." Then, too, the story behind the novel's publication is almost as intriguing as the novel itself. Boschwitz, who was half Jewish, was only 23 when he wrote the book; he died in 1942 on a transport ship traveling from Australia to England under German bombardment. The novel briefly appeared in Britain and the United States but never in the German original. In 2015, it was rediscovered by chance. Boschwitz is remarkable not only for his prescience--the novel might be one of the very earliest depictions of the aftermath of Kristallnacht--but also for his rare insight and minutely observed depictions of characters from every strata of German society. Witty at the same time that it's tragic, surreal even in its hyper-reality, Boschwitz's novel is a remarkable achievement.

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