Historical note: Like Rachel in this novel, many of the Jewish women who were raped, whether in the camps or not, and inmates (male or female) who were forced into prostitution or unwilling sexual servitude in the Nazi Concentration Camps were considered "collaborators" by their fellow inmates and treated brutally after the liberation. (In fact, one inconsiderate borrower of a library's copy of The Kommandant's Mistress crossed out the word "Mistress" on the title page and wrote "Whore, more like it" in ink beside the title; that reader was behaving exactly as did the inmates who judged and condemned, then punished, tortured, or killed any fellow inmates who were raped or forced into sexual situations/prostitution by the Nazis.)
Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, for example, who lived with his family on the Concentration Camp's grounds, had a "mistress" who bore him a son. The day before SS-Head Heinrich Himmler was to "visit" the camp to investigate the allegations, the "mistress," the son, and the guard who'd reported it all disappeared. I can only assume that, since such behavior went against Nazi principles and would have resulted in more than a mere reprimand for Kommandant Höss, the three were all sent to the gas-chambers.
Questions about Rachel as "Mistress"
The biographer of Part Three admits that nothing definitive is known about Rachel/Leah's experiences once she was deported except that she ended up in the concentration camp of Maximilian von Walther. The biographer reports several rumors of Rachel's activities in the camps, stating that the "most persistent rumor" was that she became von Walther's "mistress", which he declares "highly unlikely" [Mistress, Part Three, Rachel].
However, Max's wife Marta certainly considers Rachel/Leah to be Max's "mistress" because Marta assumes that Max is in love with "the girl". The members of the Underground consider Rachel/Leah to be in a "consensual sexual relationship" despite the fact that she is just as much a camp inmate as they themselves are. Even Rachel's husband David, at times, expresses his suspicions that Rachel was in love with Max and was willingly his "mistress" [2:7:10], saying that he doesn't want to "compete" with Max any longer.
Though Max always portrays Rachel as a willing participant in their sexual activities [1:4:7], [1:7:6], [1:8:4], [1:8:7]; Rachel always describes them as rapes and forced sexual encounters [2:1:10], [2:4:5], [2:5:8], [2:8:5], [2:9:6]. Are any of these interpretations of the "relationship" between Max and Rachel reliable? Is any more reliable than the others? If so, which? If so, why?
Do you think Rachel was a willing participant in the sexual relationship with the Kommandant of the Nazi Concentration Camp in which she was interred? If so, why? If not, why not?
Do you think that Marta was correct in her assumption that Max loved Rachel? If so, why? If not, why not? Is David's belief that Rachel loved (and perhaps still loves) Max justified? If so, why? If not, why not?
Was Rachel a "mistress" in the sense that she loved Max and wanted to be with him sexually? If so, what scenes from Rachel's section indicate this? If not, what scenes from Max's section indicate that she was not a willing participant?
Who is the more reliable interpreter of the sexual relationship between Max and Rachel: Max, Rachel, the Biographer, Marta, David, the Members of the Underground? If none of these, why not? If someone else, who, and why? Present scenes from the novel to support your interpretation.
The Theme of Parents & their Children
Max & His Children
The theme of parents and their children is an important one in the novel. Ilse and Hans, Max's children, are obviously affected by living in a house on the grounds of the concentration camp. Ilse complains about smelling the "Jew-gas" [1:1:5], she worries about taking a bath with "Jew-soap" [1:3:10], she plays "escaped Jews" with her dolls before she throws them into the fire, saying "Into the gas with you" [1:5:5], and she tells Hans, "See what you did, Hans? You bad boy. Daddy should send you to the gas" [1:5:9]. Ilse also "plays Kommandant" in his office when he's out in the camp [2:3:7].
Does Max notice how his children are being affected by the concentration camp? If he does notice, why does he react the way he does? If not, why not? Does Marta notice? If so, how does she react? If not, why not?
Dieter mentions that Max has been paying child-support for his son by his mistress [1:6:8], Max weeps when he learns this son has been killed in an air-raid [2:6:5], Max apparently writes a poem to this son called "Love Song for Klaus", to which Marta alludes [1:8:8] and which Rachel sees in his desk drawer [2:5:1]. Max lets Ilse plays with her dolls while he's trying to read the newspaper, even though the dolls keep bumping into the paper and making him lose his place [1:5:5], he reads "Hansel and Gretel" to his children in his office [2:6:9], he keeps his family with him at the concentration camp rather than be separated from them.
Is Max a good father? If so, how? If not, why not? Does he think he's a good father? Does Marta think Max is a good father? If he is a good father, then why does he only directly refer to his firstborn son once [1:7:7], and allude to him (and his other dead children) once when Ilse is sick with fever [1:7:5]? Why do we have to learn about all of Max's children from the Biographer of Part Three [Children, Part Three, Max]?
Marta
Marta takes care of the house, the cooking, the children; she is protective of Ilse and Hans even before they live on the grounds of the concentration camp [1:3:1], worries about leaks from the stove at the camp's house that might hurt them [1:1:5], doesn't like the (non-Jewish) inmates who are servants in the house to be around the children [1:3:10], makes paper dolls for Ilse to play with [1:5:5], and makes sure Max and Ilse are affectionate to Hans [1:5:5].
Is Marta a good mother? If so, why? If not, why not? Does she think she's a good mother? If so, why? If not, why not? Does Max think Marta is a good mother? If so, why? If not, why not?
Rachel, Ilse, & Hans
The children are also affected by Rachel's presence in their father's office. When the children are "playing Kommandant" alone in the office, Ilse chases Hans, saying "I'm the big, bad Jew who eats little boys"; she tells Hans that Rachel is "a Jew" and that "Jews are bad" but then asks Rachel if she wants to play with her and Hans [2:3:7]. Ilse brushes Rachel's hair and tells her "Now, you look pretty" [2:6:5]. Does Ilse's attitude toward Rachel change in the novel? If so, how? If so, why? If not, why not? In the scene where Ilse is brushing Rachel's hair, why does Ilse run away when her father calls for her [2:6:5]? Why does she want Rachel to play with them [2:3:7]? When Max is watching Ilse and Hans while Marta is getting ready for the dinner party, why does he keep telling Hans to "get away from there [from Rachel]" [1:6:6], [2:8:3]?
Hans also is aware of Rachel and has several interactions with her. He crawls toward her and coos at her when she touches his cheek [2:5:7]: Why does Rachel try to avoid Hans when he's crawling across the floor toward her? Why does Rachel touch his cheek? How does she feel when he coos at her? Why?
On the stairs between the house proper and Max's office, Hans stops crying when he's lost his bottle and Rachel holds him [2:6:2]: Why does Rachel pick him up? Why does Marta shriek when she sees Rachel holding Hans? At one point in Max's office, Hans offers Rachel a bite of his gingerbread woman cookie, and then breaks off the head and gives it to her [2:8:3]: How does Hans feel toward Rachel? What does he think of her? Does he understand that she's a Jew? If so, what does that mean to him? If not, why not? What is the significance of Hans' offering Rachel a bite of this cookie? What is the significance of Hans' breaking apart his cookie and giving some of it to her when she doesn't take the bite he offers? What is the symbolic significance of Hans' breaking the cookie's head away from the body and giving Rachel the "head" of the cookie?
Rachel, David, the Abortion, & Althea
David repeatedly asks Rachel to have a child with him but she tells him she can't [2:2:4]. Instead of telling him about the pregnancy and abortion [2:6:8] in the camp, she claims to have gone to a doctor after the war [2:2:4]. Why does Rachel tell David this story?
Why doesn't she tell him about getting pr
egnant with Max's child? How does she feel about getting pregnant in the camp? How do the members of the Underground feel about her pregnancy? How does Rachel feel about the abortion? Why?
Why doesn't Rachel want to adopt a child when David asks her to do so [2:6:1]? Why do they say such cruel things to each other about losing their own parents in the camps [2:6:1]? Why is it important to David that he and Rachel adopt a child whose parents were killed in the concentration camps [2:2:4]?
How does Rachel feel when David brings Althea home [2:10:4]? Why is Rachel afraid to touch Althea? Althea's name means "healing." What is the significance of her name? Will Althea help Rachel heal? If so, how? If not, why not? Will Althea help heal David's and Rachel's marriage? If so, how? If not, why not? Will Rachel be a good mother to Althea? If so, why? If not, why not?
Rachel & The Underground
(Historical Note: There were Underground Resistance members in many of the camps and, in the case of Auschwitz-Birkenau, in the woods surrounding the camp; members of the Sonderkommando did blow up the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau, after which the camp in this novel is most closely modeled. The Underground in Auschwitz-Birkenau, however, did not move about as freely as they did in some of the other camps. I've used artistic license in this instance, giving them more freedom of movement so they could interact with Rachel, and so readers would be aware that there were Resistance movements inside and outside the actual camps.)
The members of the Underground in the concentration camp seem to hate Rachel. They often claim that she has a soft and pampered life [2:1:8, 2:2:1, 2:2:10, 2:5:8]. They also call her a whore [2:5:8, 2:6:8] and beat her when she doesn't do what they've asked her to do [2:7:1]. Compared to the other inmates at the camp, does Rachel have a "soft and pampered life"? If so, how? If not, why not? Why do the members of the camp's Underground seem to hate Rachel? How does Rachel feel about them? Why?
Why won't Rachel do as the Underground asks? Doesn't Rachel have loyalty to the other Jews? Should she use her position in the Kommandant's office to help other Jews in the camp? Why or why not? Are the members of the Underground justified in their feelings toward Rachel? Is Rachel being selfish? If so, how? If not, why not? Is she being wise? If so, how? If not, why not?
For her part, Rachel believes that the members of the Underground don't understand her position. "They didn't even know what suffering was…I tried to help in little ways, but it didn't do any good. They couldn't have done anything either, if they'd been in my position. They didn't know what it was like for me, and they didn't even try to understand" [2:4:1]. Does Rachel try to help, as she claims? If so, what are the "little ways" in which Rachel tries to help? If not, why not?
Is Rachel's position in the camp better than that of the members of the Underground? If so, how? If not, why not? How does Rachel feel about her own position in the camp? How does Rachel feel about the members of the Underground? Why?
When Rachel claims that she did finally help the members of the camp's Underground, she says she brought them food and weapons, but that they claimed it wasn't enough for everyone [2:9:8]. They believe that she did it intentionally. Did she? If so, why? If not, why not?
Rachel gets distressed when the Underground reveals its plans to kill the Kommandant, mentioning Reinhard Heydrich's assassination [2:9:8], and Rachel lies to them, telling them that the Nazis executed Jews in Lidice and in Berlin after that assassination (the Nazis did raze Lidice and kill all its occupants in retaliation for Heydrich's assassination, but didn't kill any Jews in Berlin over it). Why does Rachel tell them that lie [2:9:8]? Why doesn't she want the members of the Underground to kill Max [2:9:8]? What would happen to Rachel if Max got killed? Why?
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Author's Note
on Select Sources
This work, though fiction, contains historical figures, including Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, and Eichmann, whose words and deeds have been well documented. Many of the quotes attributed both directly and indirectly to these figures appear in this novel. I have, however, used artistic license by putting this material into contexts in which it didn't originally appear.
Quoted material attributed to the historical figures who appear in my novel was taken from the following books (which are intentionally listed by title first, rather than in a more scholarly fashion, for the general reader, who'd look for titles rather than for authors' last names):
• The Destruction of the European Jews (in Three Volumes, Revised and Definitive Edition), by Raul Hilberg (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985).
• Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police, edited by Jochen von Lang (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983).
• Inside the Third Reich, by Albert Speer (New York: Avon, 1971).
• Kommandant of Auschwitz, by Rudolf Höss, translated by Constantine FitzGibbon (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1959).
• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, by William Shirer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960).
• The SS (Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books, 1988).
• The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922—1945, by Gerald Reitlinger (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1981).
Acknowledgment is also made to the following books, which provided some of the details of the Holocaust that appear in this novel; for example, many of Max's orders, memos, letters, and instructions include the actual wording of Nazi documents recovered by the Allies after the War. (Again, sources are intentionally listed by title first, rather than in a more academic fashion, for the general reader, who'd look for titles rather than for authors' last names):
• Adolf Hitler, by John Toland (New York: Ballantine, 1976).
• The Auschwitz Album: A Book Based Upon an Album Discovered by a Concentration Camp Survivor, Lili Meier (New York: Random House, 1981).
• The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS, by Robert Lewis Koehl (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983).
• The Book of Alfred Kantor (New York: McGraw Hill, 1971).
• Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers, by Filip Müller (New York: Stein & Day, 1984).
• The Ghetto Anthology: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Extermination of Jewry in Nazi Death Camps and Ghettos in Poland, edited by Roman Mogilanski (Los Angeles: American Congress of Jews from Poland and Survivors of Concentration Camps, 1985).
• The Goebbels Diaries, 1939—1941, translated and edited by Fred Taylor (New York: Putnam's, 1983).
• Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness, by Konnilyn G. Feig (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981).
• The Holocaust: A History of the Jews in Europe during the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1985).
• Nuremberg Diary, by G. M. Gilbert (New York: NAL [New American Library], 1961).
• The Nuremberg Trial, by Ann Tusa and John Tusa (New York: Atheneum, 1984).
• Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust, the Complete Text of the Film, edited by Claude Lanzmann (New York: Pantheon, 1985).
• Spandau: The Secret Diaries, by Albert Speer (New York: Pocket Books, 1977).
• Spiritual Resistance: Art from Concentration Camps, 1940—1945 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1981).
• The Stroop Report: A Facsimile Edition and Translation of the Official Nazi Report on the Destruction of the W
arsaw Ghetto, translated by Sybil Milton (New York: Pantheon, 1979).
• The Warsaw Ghetto in Photographs: 206 Views Made in 1941, edited by Ulrich Keller (New York: Dover, 1984).
• Who's Who in Nazi Germany, by Robert Wistrich (New York: Bonanza, 1982).
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Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr. Terrence Glass, my colleague-poet and friend, who patiently read the manuscript of my first novel in draft and provided invaluable criticism.
To Dr. Gerd Fricke, who provided the German translations, always in context of the scenes, and always with keen interest in the characters' natures.
To Christopher Williams, beloved "son", who reads everything I write, gives honest & insightful critiques, makes me laugh every time we talk, and who makes me happy and proud of him every day.
To my dissertation advisor, Michael Atkinson, who read the original story (which was undeniably dreadful) and advised me to "stick to poetry". His advice changed a bad story into an award-winning poem, which eventually yearned to become this novel. Thank you, Michael, for your loving yet frank honesty (and, no, you didn't hurt my feelings, even thirty years ago).
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