Everyone Has Their Reasons
Joseph Matthews
PM Press, Oct 1 2015, $24.95
www.pmpress.org
ISBN: 9781629630946
In 1936, fifteen years old Polish-German Jew Herschel
Grynszpan flees his homeland. Though the
trek was perilous, he makes it to Paris.
In 1938, Grynszpan calmly walks into the German embassy in Paris and
assassinates a German consular official, Ernst von Rath. The Nazi regime appears irate in public while
condoning the mass slaughter of Jews in Germany in the infamous Kristallnacht,
the Night of Broken Glass response. As
the teen stands “trial” for murder; the Nazi propaganda machine blames
Grynszpan and his abomination race for starting the European hostilities. However, Grynszpan proves much cleverer than
thought; forcing the Fuhrer to personally delay the trial until other means of
extermination can be executed.
Combining the agreed upon (by historiographers) known facts with
the protagonist’s fictional “letters” written to his appointed lawyer from his
prison cell, this is a powerful historical
drama mindful of Harlan
Greene’s equally excellent “The German Officer’s Boy” (same lead). This is a timely tale with immigration and
intolerance issues, and wall solutions (reminiscent of the “successes” by the Maginot
Line and the Great Wall of China) still in the forefront today.
Aptly titled Everyone
Has Their Reasons is a tremendous pre WWII fictional account of a real incident
used by propagandists to justify murder, torture, looting and destruction.
Harriet Klausner
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