Review: Pennies for Hitler

Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



It has been quite a while since I enjoyed a book as much as I did this one. Perhaps it was because my own background has had some similar elements. Georg is German and at the age of 10 has been told he has the perfect head dimensions of a true Aryan. He is patriotic and very proud of Der Führer. Until everything goes wrong. Although his father did not consider himself to be Jewish, unbeknownst to Georg, his father's grandfather was Jewish. Since Jewish inheritance is matrilineal, Georg's father thought he was fine living and working in Germany with his German wife. But Georg's father is attacked at his university and Georg has to be smuggled out of the country to England to live with his aunt. When London is bombed and his aunt can't keep him, he is sent to Australia to live with a family there.

My similarities: I grew up in a conservative and religious family and then went to Germany as a foreign student. It is a challenge to see a lot of your values and personal convictions completely changed by experience. In the US, my parents supported the Viet Nam war, so I did, too. In Germany, though, the people I knew were both intelligent and well-informed, but also were very strongly against the war. Religion was not important to them, either. Good, moral people, but not religious - how could that be?

With the background of the war and Georg's own disillusionment and angst, you see Georg gradually come to understand morality and the choices that one has to make - all with eyes wide open for the effects of one's choices. Love of country, love of family, both important, but needed to be understood through the complexity of humanity.

One of the things I love about a lot of the books I read from Australia is the fundamental love of family that comes shining through. This book has so much of that and it is both sweet and painful. The love of the land also comes shining through. From the first glimpse of the Nullarbor Plain to Melbourne, then Sydney, then to a small village called Bellagong, you can almost see and smell the gum trees, the cattle, and the rambling house.

Great book.





View all my reviews