Journey to Nowhere - post III

You know when someone is angry because they become repetitive but this book starts to get to its central theme when Eva recalls the conversations she had with the old housemaid Edith about Palestine.

The lonely woman was left in Berlin at the end of the war with nothing so proved to be an easy target for the Zionists who took her away to Palestine. But the country was full of different groups that hated each other.

Figes then goes onto talk about the history of the Jewish state and her dislike of it. This is brave writing because of course as a Jew she cannot be easily shot down in flames for being anti-Semitic so presumably other charges were levelled against her. But the idea that hate is at the bottom of most of Palestine is a difficult one to get to grips with.

At the end of the way no one seemed to know what to do with the millions of displaced people that had been created as a result of the war and the holocaust. Palestine became a dumping ground that allowed other countries to consider their obligations met. It perhaps never really answered or solved the problem and as a result continues to provide debate until the present day.

A review will follow soon...