‘Radium’ memoirist can’t completely overcome family obstacles: review

After the Second World War, with the support of Albert Einstein, Eugene Mirzbache entered the United States from Türkiye to follow up graduate studies at Harvard University. There, as the story says, my father presented his quantum mechanical notes, so that Merzbacher can register in the middle of the year. In a nice paradox, Merzbacher will later the author of the standard textbook in this field.

If the friend of the family survived this contribution was the result of an extraordinary convergence of luck and circumstances. In 1935, the industrial chemical father in Merzbacher transported his German Jewish family from the outskirts of Berlin to Ankara, the capital of Türkiye. Mirzbacher told me in a late interview, “We have never escaped. I never called us.

Joe Danthurn Fourth Fourth G -Fourth, “Radium Children”, understand that, while wandering around Europe and during decades of family traditions. Dunthorne is his headquarters, a poet and novelist whose first novel, “Supmarine”, is located in the 2010 movie. In the notes, he carefully recounts his great grandfather’s involvement in Nazi research of chemical weapons and the development of the gas mask. In this process, he asks familiar questions about the limits of his semi -historical project.

Dunthorne’s gifts were exposed to a clear loss and its promotion as a researcher: He dug through the archives, toured the Jejir counter and even the cooked food that his grandfather consumed once. Post -Holocaust notes are often the stories of the pursuit, and Dunthorne puts its attempts to reveal the truth, or almost, with a segmented novel of SiegFried Merzbacher. But the bright circular book structure, including a great extension of one of Sigarchy’s sisters, tests the patience of the reader. Feast is located between the parties close to exhaustion and reports.

As is typical, Dunthorne faces gaps in the historical registry – documents fighting by bombs, which were removed by the allies, until they were ignored by non -emotional relatives. The exacerbation of these gaps are memory abnormalities and unlawful key sources.

Jeddah Dunhurn (Eugene’s sister Mirzbacher) is basically found in attempts to meet him. “We felt her presence in his absence,” he writes about her funeral, which is a code suitable for her illness. Even his mother, who plays an important role in his research and earns the dedication of the book, requires not to disclose his identity. Dunthorne relates to referring to it only as “my mother”.

With the passage of contracts, it is difficult to discover facts, emotions and motives more re -calculated. To enhance the ability to read, Dunthorne admits that “great freedoms with the chronology” of his research and the play moments in the lives of his characters – admits deviations from the journalistic accuracy that, no matter how slight, confirm the reliability of Dunthorne Karahi.

These unreliable mirrors, whether intentionally or not, are from its main sources: the huge notes that can be read almost and their grandfather is composed. Dunthorne managed to access the German origin, about 1,800 written pages, as well as a translated version distributed over family members. It was found that Eugen Merzbacher, who presented a few engraving in “Radium Children”, was the translator, as he finished the mission shortly before his death in 2013 in 92.

Dunthorne is derived from one of the early professional achievements of SiegFried: the manufacture of radioactive toothpaste has become the choice of the German army. “A sub -factory in occupied Czechoslovakia ensures that the forces that are pushing east, brutal and killing, and burning the entire villages on the ground, can do so with radioactive teeth,” Dunhurn writes, combining paradoxical separation and terror.

In 1926, Siegfric worked to create “activated coal filters” for gas masks, a task that justified it as life saving. In 1928, he won the title of German Laboratory Director looking for chemical weapons. In late 1935, with Nazi named Erwin Thaner, he participated in writing an article in a commercial publication, a gas mask, about carbon-umoxide-method used after years to kill the Jews. “The relationship between their article and gas trucks was purely speculation, and a retroactive impact,” says Dennersor. In his own notes, Siegfrid denied writing for publication.

The Merzbacher family lived in Oranienburg, the final location of the Tasmaz camp in Sachsenhausen. Siegfrid’s relationship with his non -Jewish colleagues was naturally complicated by the policy of that time. Their work was fueled by Nazi militarization, but in some cases they themselves lacking ideological enthusiasm. Or perhaps Siegfrid’s experience simply outperformed his Jewish background. Eugene Mirzbacher told me that the transfer to Türkiye had occurred, because his father’s presidents “saw hand writing on the wall.” In Ankara, Siegfrid became a co -director of the gas mask factory, a joint German -German institution adjacent to the toxic gas laboratory.

“He and his family were fleeing from the Nazis while they kept relying on them, which will become more problematic in the coming years,” Dunhurn writes. The transportation saved the live life of the Siegfrid family, at a cost of peace of mind. “I can’t get rid of the great debt on my conscience,” he wrote Segfred later.

Denthrin discovers, in his tour, some effects, direct and indirect, for his grandfather’s actions. He visits the town of Ammendorf, Germany, where he has left a chemical manufacturing factory managed by Sitefrid heads, since it has turned into a nightclub, behind toxic chaos and a large number of cancer cases.

More than her chilling, Dunthorne finds a speech linking SiegFried to Türkiye to bought chemical weapons from Germany – weapons that are allegedly used for the Armenian and Kurds massacre in the town of Dersim. It also indicates that the SIEGFRID filters helped to develop Jewish prisoners by clearing the bodies of the gas rooms.

Hajarfred later to the United States with his wife, Lily, and worked in a painting factory in New Jersey. After his retirement, his anxiety worsened for life and depression, and for a while, he was an institution. With the help of his mother, Dunthorne gets psychological records, and the investigation coup, and uses it to rebuild his early life.

In the end, the notes are struggling with all of his grandfather and his family’s continuous relationships with Germany. Among his discoveries, he was released by Sigfred, which preaches global disarmament. “In his letters, he was conceived a safer future, and in his memoirs he invented a safer past,” Dantrin wrote, making his way from condemnation to sympathy.

Klein is a cultural correspondent, critic in Philadelphia and critic of the striker’s shareholder.