"In 1948, the German Jewish author Gabriele Tergit travelled to Berlin. There, in ruins, was the city in which she was born and grew up, reported on, then chronicled in fiction. Tergit had been one of the shining lights of interwar Berlin's flourishing journalistic scene; she had also married into one of the city's most prominent Jewish families. In 1931 her debut novel announced her as a literary phenomenon. Then the Nazis came to power."
"Now, thanks to an excellent translation by Sophie Duvernoy, The Effingers is appearing in English. The novel follows four generations of the extended Effinger family, Jewish industrialists ensconced in Berlin high society, from the Bismarck-loving 1870s to the rise of fascism in the 1930s. Its central figure, Paul Effinger, heads to Berlin to make his fortune in industry. Paul, an ascetic enamoured of mass production, marries into the elite Oppner-Goldschmidt family, as does his brother, Karl."
"Paul, an ascetic enamoured of mass production, marries into the elite Oppner-Goldschmidt family, as does his brother, Karl. The novel follows numerous members of the extended clan through what is considered a golden age for assimilated Jewish life in Berlin. The city changes profoundly in those decades: rapid population growth, technological advances, massive inequality and inconsistent bursts of progressivism. Ultimately, the interwar era's political and economic instability brings disaster, as does surging antisemitism."
Gabriele Tergit returned to Berlin in 1948 and found the ruined city where she was born and raised. She had been a leading journalist in interwar Berlin and married into a prominent Jewish family. After early literary success in 1931 she fled Nazi persecution, moving to Czechoslovakia, Palestine, and London. Postwar Germany offered her little place or audience for The Effingers, published in 1951 to scant acclaim until recent German rediscovery. The Effingers traces four generations of a Jewish industrialist family from the 1870s to the 1930s, portraying urban change, modern industry, assimilation, political instability and rising antisemitism in precise, reporterly scenes.
#gabriele-tergit #the-effingers-novel #berlin-history-1870s1930s #jewish-assimilation-and-antisemitism #literary-exile-and-rediscovery
Read at www.theguardian.com
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