The Passenger

Description

Germany, November 1938: Otto Silbermann receives a knock on his door and realises he must flee. A respected German-Jewish businessman, he has managed to evade the escalating brutality of the Nazi regime. But now, as he and his wife plan to leave, all avenues are shut down and he is forced to abandon his home amid the untrammelled violence of Kristallnacht. With all the money he can gather stuffed into a suitcase, Otto takes train after train across Germany, desperately seeking to cross the border, every moment terrified a fellow passenger will discover his Jewish identity. An unbearably tense rediscovered classic, The Passenger is an unparalleled depiction of the terrifying atmosphere of Nazi Germany.

Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz was born into a German-Jewish family in Berlin in 1915. He undertook a business apprenticeship and seemed poised for a business career, but following the rise of the Nazis he and his mother were forced to flee Germany. They went first to Sweden and then to Norway, eventually settling in Britain. There they were arrested in 1940 and held in an internment camp; Boschwitz was deported to Australia and imprisoned there for two years. He died when the ship he was returning to Europe on in 1942 was torpedoed by a German submarine; he was only 27 years old.

'A tragicomic fable of the human condition and a comedy of morals and characters of exceptional psychological acuity, The Passenger evokes the worlds of Kafka and Charlie Chaplin' - Le Figaro 'The Passenger is a miracle' - Suddeutsche Zeitung