Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel

This story shows some of the mysticism prevalent within the third reich at the end of WWII. A camp was set up in a former mine to house a group of translators. Their job was to answer letters to the dead or soon to be dead in the concentration camps in order to prevent the repercussions of the spirits of the dead. The camp contains a large subversive element, and Elie makes frequent trips out for supplies that also involve helping people make their escape from the Nazis. Things take a turn when the philosopher Heidegger writes a letter to his optometrist. The compound is under orders to create a response to Heidegger, but fear that this may be a near impossible task to perform. When things begin to go wrong, Elie makes the bold decision to attempt a rescue attempt for both the optometrist, both a friend and former professor to Heidegger, and his son. The letters and the translations are interspersed at each chapter and show the separation between reality and the fiction the scribes have to create. Heidegger's philosophy also plays a role in this tale, as does the background of some of the scribes.

Every once in a while a random book selection turns out to be a thought provoking gem. Heidegger's Glasses is one such book.Set in Germany, towards the end of WWII, an underground compound houses a number of Jewish scribes. The only reason why they've managed to avoid being transported to concentration camps or shot outright is because of their multi-language skills. They're kept in this compound to answer letters written by victims in concentration camps, most of whom had died by the time their letters were replied to. As Himmler dabbles in the occult, he believed that if the letters of the dead were answered, their spirits would be appeased and Germany will win the war.Elie has changed her last name and so her identity, which allows her to work within the Nazi Party in this compound, but also allows her to cloak herself in the resistance movement where she helps to rescue and smuggle out Jews. Lodenstein, her lover and Nazi officer commanding this compound is also part of this resistance movement. All of their efforts and their lives are now at risk because of an unexpected mission that has been given to them. Heidegger, a German philosopher has broken his glasses and has asked for a new one made for him by his old friend, Asher. Unbeknownst to him, Asher is in Auschwitz, and rather than have him search out his old friend and discover the dastardly secret gas chambers, Goebbles has instructed the scribes to respond to Heidegger's letter in the same manner in which Asher would have responded and to deliver his glasses together with the letter to him. Unfortunately nothing goes according to plan, and Elie's identity is compromised.There is nothing for it but for Lodenstein to visit Goebbels and try to cover up the mistake. This results in him being thrown into jail for a week and then sent off with Heidegger to Auschwitz to find Asher and his son. Asher has, in the meantime been pulled from hard labor, given regular food and clothes, and set in a lab to make glasses for the camp officers, so that when Heidegger arrived, he wouldn't realize his friend had been tortured and starved.What is striking is the mental anxieties that Asher goes through when he is first pulled off hard labor. He expects to be shot or sent to the gas chambers are every small bit of kindness received from the guards. From his window he looks out on the snow covered ground, stained pink from the blood of executed prisoners.Interspersed throughout the book are what appears to be short notes and letters from Holocaust victims, initially somewhat simple and innocuous but which gradually become darker and then painful towards the end. The letters help create a very moving platform on which the characters in the book are supported. As the letters progress from mere disquiet at the disappearance of people to stark terror and horror about death camps, so too do certain characters in this compound have to stare their own tragic pasts in the face or the killer within themselves.This is a book that will stay with you for a long time.

I enjoyed this book although enjoyed is, perhaps, the wrong word about any Holocaust based book. It was not actually violent so those (like me) with sqeamish stomachs and overactive imaginations will manage fine.As other reviews have noted, there is a question about who the scribes wrote letters to. The following is my opinion.People going into concentration camps were forced to write letters home. These letters extolled the conditions of the concentration camps in the hopes that people would voluntarily come to the camps.Because of the occult fanaticism amd their belief that the dead comunicate with us, some leaders in Nazi positions of power believed that letters written by concentration camp victims created special problems. Those dead waited uneasily for responses to their letters. That unease created cracks in the world that threatened Germany's rise to supremacy. The scribes were to write letters to the dead so that the "ghosts" could be appeased. I based this idea on the the book's scene where seances were held with people many years dead. Those people also needed response letters.(Perhaps the occult fanatics would have believed Nazi Germany fell because there were too many letters to answer!)Yes, the whole idea of the letters is confusing. The inserted letters are often cryptic. I expect that was the author's intent. It created a slight unease throughout the book not much unlike what the characters felt daily.In the end, I enjoyed the book a lot. Parts of it will stay with me a long time, and that is one of my criteria for proclaiming a book to be good.