Innocent? – Or Not?

All The Broken Places by John Boyne is a powerful novel set over four different time periods that consumed me from the start. It is the sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas but can be read as a stand-alone. I recommend reading book one first as there are references to scenes in there. This is Gretel’s story who is the daughter of the commandant of Auschwitz, and therefore sister to Bruno, the lead character in The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.

The story in set in London in 2022, and also in Paris in 1946, Sydney 1952, and London again in 1953. The chapters alternate between 2022 and the other time periods.

Gretel is ninety-one in 2022. She has had a lifetime of hiding and guilt consuming her, despite only being twelve-years-old when she first went to live at Auschwitz. She has been running from the truth ever since.

Blame is laid on her youth. She claims her youth equals her innocence – but she knew exactly what was going on, and she is only fooling herself.

We see the truth of Edmund Burke’s famous statement that for evil to flourish, it just needs good men to do nothing. “By doing nothing, you did everything.” People are complicit in the Holocaust by their inactivity.

There are Holocaust survivors. Their stories cannot be compared to Gretel’s. She chose to do nothing, to say nothing. She has guilty hands. The Jewish people had no choice in their fate.

In contrast, we see a heart surgeon who cares deeply. Lives are quite literally in her hands. She cares for all her patients but especially for those who died. “I can’t remember the names of those that survived, but I remember each one that died.”

There is the theme of fathers. Gretel says of her father; “The inhumanity of his actions contrasted sharply with the man I thought I had known.” Only in later years does she realise what a monster he was.

And we meet a father in 2022 who ‘speaks’ with his fists – pummelling the innocent, his nine-year-old son and his wife. Will the sins of the fathers’ travel down the generations? Are we destined to become our fathers?

I thoroughly enjoyed All The Broken Places. I thought it was extremely well written. My responses to the character of Gretel were complicated. She appeared as an innocent girl at twelve-years-old and as an old lady of ninety-one – but she never acknowledged her part in the Holocaust nor her personal jealousy that meant the life of her brother took a very bleak turn. She felt guilt; and she hid, but did she ever seek out punishment for her part in the Holocaust? Read the book to find out.

All The Broken Places must be read in memory of the six million innocents who died – and of those who survived. May we never keep quiet when we see evil acts, and may we have the courage to stand up and to speak out.

JULIA WILSON