Parallel Journeys

Helen represents the other parallel. Through Alfons, Ayer shows how the Nazis impacted a young person that was a part of their mythological “master race.” With Helen, Ayer illuminates how the Nazis treated people branded as enemies. Helen is Jewish, yet she doesn’t go to synagogue or come across as particularly religious. As a young person in Frankfurt, Helen describes the life of her and her friends, “We liked to discuss politics, go to horse races, and irritate our parents by wearing very unattractive clothing” (32).

Like Alfons, Helen has many admirable qualities. She is independent and resilient. Before the rise of the Nazis, she stands up to her mom and refuses to marry a rich older man. When they move to Holland, she gets a job as an interior decorator and becomes the breadwinner for her family. Helen subverts traditional gender norms: She, not her husband, supports the family. In the Holocaust, her willful personality keeps her alive. She retains her humanity and doesn’t yield to indifference or hate. Through seemingly little actions, like washing herself with any water she can find, she reminds herself that she’s “still an important person with a body worth caring for” (218).

After the Holocaust, Helen manifests her resilience as she travels through war-torn Europe and reconciles with her daughter, eventually making a life for herself in the United States. Helen’s journey demonstrates the horrors of the Holocaust and the hardships of surviving the genocide. She doesn’t have an easy time adjusting, but, like Alfons, she doesn’t run away from her experiences. She declares, “I will never forget what has happened, nor should anyone else” (356). By partnering with Alfons, she continually makes the Holocaust visible and sends the message that understanding must replace hate. Many people detest Alfons, but Helen, ever-independent, embraces him. To comprehend how genocides happen, people need to hear from the victims and those aligned with the perpetrators.

Hitler is the leader of the Nazis and Germany. He has totalitarian powers—in other words, he controls everything, and his word is law. Without his approval, there’s no Holocaust. Hitler’s seemingly endless authority makes him seem superhuman. Ayer writes, “It was obvious to most teenagers that Hitler was invincible—he could not be beaten. In their minds, der Führer was more powerful than God” (52). Ayer’s otherworldly depiction of Hitler is common. Konrad Heiden, a German-American journalist who witnessed Hitler’s rise, called him “one of the most tremendous phenomena of all world history” (Der Fuehrer, Houghton Mifflin, 1944, p. 35)

Throughout the book, most top Nazis come across as beyond human. It’s as if supernatural evil creatures put Alfons and the Germans under a spell. Ayer calls SS head Heinrich Himmler “black-souled” (141), Adolf Eichmann is “[m]asterminding the exterminations” (121), and Hitler turns into a “demented demon from hell” (197). Ayer uses hyperbolic diction to emphasize their extreme vileness.

The 20th-century journalist and political theorist Hannah Erendt put the Nazis in an alternate light. In her book on the Eichmann trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics, 2008), she describes Nazis as “terribly and terrifyingly normal” (p. 276). They’re not “demons” or “masterminds” but people, and people can engineer atrocities.

Not all the Nazis in Ayer’s book receive a demonic portrayal. There’s the Nazi who helps Helen’s dad get out of Germany, and there’s Hans Leiwitz, who can’t stop thinking about the Babi Yar massacre. And, lest the reader forget, Alfons is a Nazi. To understand the Nazis and what they did, people can’t generalize or relegate them to the realm of superhuman villains.

Alfons’s family members showcase a mix of support, skepticism, and outright condemnation. His grandpa calls Hitler a “crazy Austrian” but admits, “[I]t’s better than having the beastly Communists take us over” (19). After Hitler restores order and creates jobs, Alfons’s grandpa becomes “solidly behind Adolf Hitler” (19). He supports Hitler because he experiences the tangible benefits of his reign. Alfons’s dad opposes Hitler and contrasts Alfons’s enchantment. He says his son has “all the makings of an arrogant Nazi” and refers to his Hitler Youth uniform as a “monkey suit” (46). Alfons could have reported his dad for his comments, but he doesn’t. Though he goes against their wishes, he never completely breaks from his family.

Alfons’s less fanatical family members provide a contrast. His grandma treats Heinz and his mom with compassion, and as World War II begins, Aunt Maria reminds him of the horrors of combat, “Don’t you know that hundreds of young men are dying at this very hour? This isn’t one of your dumb Hitler Youth exercises” (76). Through Alfons’s family, Ayer shows that people can still think for themselves under Nazism. Alfons hears reasonable voices, and after the war, he becomes a thoughtful voice.

Helen’s family is less visible than Alfons’s family in the book. While Alfons is with his family in Germany, Helen’s family, to avoid the genocide, scatters. Her brother, Fred, makes it to England before going to the United States with his mom and dad. Moving is trying, and Helen’s family shows how other countries lack compassion and treat the Jews with indifference via restrictive immigration policies. Helen’s brother, mom, and dad get into the United States because her dad is Lithuanian, and they haven’t met their arbitrary quota for Lithuanian immigrants. Thus, survival is a matter of chance or incident.

Helen’s mom provides her with an antagonist. Before the Holocaust, they fight about marriage, with Helen asserting her agency and refusing to marry the older man. After the Holocaust, in Chicago, they fight about Helen’s absence from synagogue and her determination to speak about her status as a Holocaust survivor. Her mom tells her, “Forget those times and what has happened. Nobody wants to hear or talk about this anymore” (350). Her mom isn’t interested in understanding or making the death and violence of the Holocaust visible.

Helen’s husband contrasts her. She describes Siegfried as “never physically strong” and “a sensitive person who appreciated beauty in art, in music, in books” (323). Aware of his delicate nature, Siegfried predicts his death, and his forecast comes true.

Helen is tougher, so she survives and recenters her life on her daughter, Doris. In Ayer’s words, “All that she had been living for was to find the child” (327). Doris becomes a symbol of hope for Helen. Helen admits, “I needed this child to give me strength. I had a strong feeling that I was drowning in a world that had no place for me” (327). After the Holocaust, Helen anchors her identity to Doris, and the burden upsets Doris, but the mother and daughter manage to get along.