A compelling WW2 fiction that penetrates your senses. Catharina, Gerhard and Jozef have lived as typical of a life as can be lived after the horrors of Adolf Hilter. They have a pretty reserved social life, with the acception of a long time comrade Michael. As Jozef is preparing to enter his College years, his parents reveal a secret that will change his life forever. This secret complicates life for all involved. Bringing to the surface repressed emotions and threatening to unravel long eclipsed secrets. Life, love, marriage, bonds and blood all come into question. It seems that the Holocaust continues to claim lives even after the demise of the much feared and loathed Fuhrer.

The Quiet Genocide contains a wealth of fascinating information about the rise of Hitler and National Socialism that was certainly new to this reader. The author chooses to impart these facts largely through the classes Jozef attends at school and university, so I did feel at times that I was sitting alongside him in a series of history lectures – a case of telling rather than showing. This contrasted with the sections of moving first-hand testimony, for example from Professor Zielinski, which felt much more vivid and powerful. I also confess that I found it difficult to identify with the adolescent drinking exploits of Jozef and his university friends that take up some of the book. Jozef’s experiences at school and university are interspersed with insights into the troubled marriage of his parents, Catharina and Gerhard. Gerhard finds refuge in drinking sessions, either alone or with his acquaintance Michael, who seems to exercise a strange hold over Gerhard and exudes a general air of malevolence. Catharina finds refuge from her unhappy marriage in a quite different way; a way that will have unforeseen and tragic consequences. The subtitle of the book, The Untold Holocaust of Disabled Children in WW2 Germany, means the subject matter of the book is clear to the reader from the start but of course what the reader doesn’t know is how Jozef’s personal history is connected to this terrible atrocity. I think it’s fair to say that it takes quite a while for the mystery surrounding Jozef’s past to be revealed. However, as the book draws towards its shocking conclusion and the true nature of the connection is revealed, it provides an explanation for the strained relationship between Jozef’s parents and demonstrates how the malevolent influence and twisted belief systems of Nazism persisted in some quarters even beyond the end of the war. I found this latter section of the book the most compelling and, for me, it had the pace that was perhaps lacking in earlier parts of the book. Although I have read a number of books about atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War Two, the shocking nature of those events never seems to lose its impact. Most shocking of all, I find, is the ruthless efficiency and organisation with which such terrible acts were carried out: paperwork completed, records kept, numbers tallied, targets set. Books such as A Quiet Genocide perform an important role in ensuring that such atrocities are never forgotten. In three words: Compelling, factual, chilling.

A Quiet Genocide from new author Glenn Bryant is a quiet book. Right up until it punches you in the gut. It’s historical fiction with a topic I’ve never seen broached. And I’ve read WW2 stories for decades now. It opens in post-WW2 Munich with the Diederichs. They’re a small family—just young parents and their grade school aged son. Catharina is a housewife, and Gerhard is a businessman. Young Jozef is a typical boy. But Gerhard drinks too much, Catharina is dissatisfied with life, and Jozef is mischievous. And Gerhard has a friend, Michael, who’s uncomfortably menacing. The book then jumps forward to Josef’s first year at university, when things start to unravel. Catharina is more restless. Gerhard is less discreet. And Jozef begins to question his own reality. Since the book’s subtitle is The Untold Holocaust of Disabled Children in WW2 Germany, I anticipated grisly details. When Bryant delivers, it’s more of an intense emotional hit than a gruesome one. But it still hurts. Especially given the kinds of things happening in the 2018 United States. My conclusions Bryant writes like an author with many more books to his credit. A Quiet Genocide is absorbing. Its truth-telling is subtle, and unfurls like a big black umbrella on a rainy day. The book has a darkness to it from the start. Then that umbrella opens and the true storm begins. Bryant learned of this specific genocide while studying modern history at university. Stunned that it’s not taught more often, he determined to make people more aware. Using fiction as a tool makes the story more palpable. There were tens of thousands of families like the Diederichs. Their story deserves to be told. I’m also intrigued to know about Amsterdam Publishers, a small house that specializes in Holocaust Memoirs and WW2 historical fiction. Their catalog looks like something to work my way through. I hope you’ll give this book a try. It’s well worth your time!

I read a lot of WWII fiction and this book joined my shelf of favorites. It takes place in the 50s in Germany and is about the after effect of the war as well as flashbacks to the war years. There are still people in Germany who are part of the National Socialist party and former Nazis and are unhappy with the changes in their country since the end of the war. The main character is Jozef. He grows up in a fairly happy household with two parents. A friend of his father's, Michael, visits once a week to talk politics and drink with his dad. The day before Jozef goes away to university, his parents tell him that he is adopted which makes him question his entire life. While at university he is thirsty for knowledge and learns more about WWII and eventually about the way that the Nazis euthanized people who were handicapped - both mentally and physically. He also tries to find out about his birth parents which further unsettles his life. This novel had a great story but was also written to teach the reader about Germany - before, during and after WWII. Even though I read a lot of fiction from this era, I learned several items that I'd never known before which to me is the sign of a great work of historical fiction.