Book Review: "Badenheim 1939" by Aharon Appelfeld

You guys probably already know this but Penguin Modern Classics have been publishing a lot recently and one of the things they have been publishing are the works of Aharon Appelfeld. I'm looking forward to indulging in the new classics, I regret to inform you though because of the fact that I am currently moving - it will be done via Kindle. Cost effective and easy to carry around, paperbacks are not worth the fuss at the moment. Maybe soon but not now. As I write the introduction, I have only read the opening paragraph but, judging by the year in the title and the German-sounding name - I think I have a small inkling of what this is going to be about...

Badenheim is a Jewish city in Austria in the 1930s (oh boy, oh dear god, oh no) that hosts wonderful festivals filled with colour and art. As the 'sanitation department' start to view the hygiene levels of the people involved, it becomes apparent that this 'sanitation department' are not all sunshine and rainbows.

Distrust is growing, brewing, increasing from every angle and making people turn almost paranoid with the belief that something unsettling is going on (do you know what that unsettling thing is? I don't think 'unsettling' is the word. 'Crime against humanity' yes, but 'unsettling', no). As the sanitation department witnesses and involves themselves, the Jewish people of 1939 become all the more concerned and distrusting of their sanitation department.

I really am wondering whether you have realised who the sanitation department are in this book. If you have not got it already yes, they are supposed to represent the Nazis. The fact that this novel is written by an Israeli makes it all the more fascinating. The emotions are raw, strong and real even if it is a Darkness at Noon -esque version of events in which real ideas are swapped out for representative ones whilst the crux of the story remains ardently the same.

As the sanitation department begin to gain access to more and more in Badenheim, we see the happiness and anticipation of the festival begin to melt away. People begin to get suspicious about them, suspicious about each other and there is an air of distrust that covers the whole area. Whilst this is all going on, we have separate side stories - some of which are more upsetting than the others. We begin to realise that this sanitation department not only has some weird intentions but it has a great amount of influence; at one instance in the book, the bakeries and pastry shops find it difficult to keep up with the demands of what these people want to eat and yet, understand that they must.

Throughout the text, there is an understanding by the reader that something huge is about to happen (in reality, this is the Holocaust), but in the text there seems to be no threat of that whatsoever amongst the Jewish population, which is why the ending feels so much more upsetting when you've read the whole book. I won't tell you exactly what happens but I'm guessing you could probably think of half of it for yourself.

Dr Pappenheim is a sort of pillar and leader of the community of Badenheim and its chief pharmacist. He seems to be noticing the small changes that are happening in the community ever since the sanitation department got involved and does not quite understand why it is all happening. Other characters include musicians, couples, tourists and many more - each of whom misinterprets the looming threat of these new influential people who have turned up in Badenheim.

As the book moves on, we get government mandated isolation where the influential powers restrict the movement of the people in Badenheim, we get the shift in the atmosphere from fun and colourful to something more uneasy and unsettling, we get the dramatic irony of knowing that the sanitation department will not keep its 'promise' of having the Jewish people of Badenheim resettled in Poland and we know that there is something that is going to happen at the end of the book which is deeply upsetting. This book is a historical lens that depicts in a microcosm, one of the cruelest things to ever have happened in world history.