Cover of The Jew Car: Fourteen Days from Two Decades

The Jew Car: Fourteen Days from Two Decades

Originally published in 1962, Franz Fuhmann's autobiographical story cycle The Jew Caris a classic of German short fiction and an unparalleled examination of the psychology of National Socialism. Each story presents a snapshot of a personal and historical turning point in the life of the narrator, beginning with childhood anti-Semitism and moving to a youthful embrace—and then an ultimate rejection—of Nazi ideology. With scathing irony and hallucinatory intensity, reflections on the nature of memory, and the individual experience of history, the cycle acquires the weight of a novel.

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"Fuhmann's work, beginning with The Jew Car, can be read as a great literary self-analysis in the spirit of Freud. Through his work, he not only became conscious of his own thinking as it was seduced by totalitarianism, he also became capable of describing the mechanisms of a fascist upbringing with striking poetic power, transcending all theory." —Die Welt, on the German edition

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 257 pages

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Liked The Jew Car: Fourteen Days from Two Decades? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Jew Car: Fourteen Days from Two Decades. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. A Season for Healing Shares antisemitism, World War II, politics
  2. Ideology of Death Shares antisemitism, World War II, history
  3. Captain of Innocence Shares antisemitism, politics, biography
  4. Searching for Lord Haw-Haw: The Political Lives of William Joyce Shares antisemitism, World War II, biography

“If you want more of the same (biography), start with these.”

  1. Building a Nazi Europe
  2. The Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm
  3. The German opposition to Hitler
  4. Alternatives to Hitler

“If it was the antisemitism that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Jewish Enemy
  2. The Farhud
  3. Unchosen People
  4. Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Eumeswil
  2. Eugenio Montale, the Fascist Storm, and the Jewish Sunflower
  3. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945
  4. The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction and Psychotherapy