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. The Kindle version will be available on August 22, just next week. It’s well worth your time!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Glenn Bryant and Amsterdam Publishers for a digital advanced readers copy of A Quiet Genocide. As always, this review is entirely my own honest impressions and writing.
Barbara, I was aware of this because I did have my WWII phase in the past. But it became more personal with the birth of my son who is on the spectrum & I am also a teacher if disabled students. Lately Asperger has been in the press as complicit with Nazis. Also featured ina Maggie Hope Book. Love your reviews- K
Thanks so much, Katherine. I didn’t realize Asperger had a connection to Nazis, but I just Googled it. Wowza, that’s horrible. I recall this issue being discussed in the Amazon series, The Man in the High Castle. So it may be in that book too. And I’m glad to hear it’s addressed in the Maggie Hope books–I never got past the second book in that series. (They started to annoy me.) Anyway, I do hope you’ll read A Quiet Genocide. I’ll be curious to hear what you think.
Barbara, I shared this book with my son who is taking a class on Nazi Germany. As a result he is writing his senior thesis on this program, the eugenics movement & researching the attitudes, motivations, of the doctors involved, some tried at Nuremberg. Thank you!!!! Always enjoy your reviews & the wide range of genres you read & review!
This is so fabulous, Katherine! I’d like to share your comment with the book’s author also. I think it will mean a LOT to him that his book influenced your son’s senior thesis.
I will read this book!
Yay! :->