Secrets and Shadows by Roberta Silman

Roberta Silman’s Secrets and Shadows adds another important narrative to the numerous novels about Jewish families who endured the crazed cruelty of the Nazis during WWII.  The novel also illuminates how fast democratic norms can be diminished until they erode completely leaving anarchy and evil in their place.

When the Berlin Wall falls in November of 1989, Paul Bertram calls his ex-wife Eve and asks her to accompany him to Germany.  Given their almost non-existent communication, the request baffles Eve but she nonetheless agrees to join him.

As they visit the Berlin landmarks of Paul’s childhood, Paul recounts the incremental loss of freedom he and his family experienced in the 1940s.   As a boy, Paul was known as Paulie Berger. His family was Jewish and his father owned a jewelry store. When it became clear that leaving Berlin was not viable, Paul’s parents arranged for a Gentile family, with whom they were friends, to move into the Berger’s home. The Berger family, in turn, moved into a hidden room in the attic. As the Nazis crept closer, the Berger family fled to the forest.  Before their departure, Paul made a spiteful decision that affected the Gentile family.  He had never told anyone - until this trip.

Paul had immigrated to the United States and became quite successful. He attended college and law school, married his wife Eve and became the father of three children. Yet internally, he felt ashamed about the choices he made as a teenage boy. The psychological trauma of his wartime experiences stayed with him. The accumulated stress and guilt haunted his every move. Paul withdrew from his family, flew into wild rages and engaged in a series of public affairs. Finally, Eve and Paul divorced and retreated into separate lives.

What Eve learns about Paul’s boyhood experience shocks and saddens her. She had never pressed him for details during their marriage. She feared what she might hear.  Now she understands that Paul’s emotional distance came from the horrors he witnessed and his need for self-punishment. For Paul, the trip is part confessional, part therapy and part detective work to answer his own questions about those years. A unique aspect of this novel is that Paul is able to return to his boyhood home and even encounter one of the people he had betrayed. His psychological healing may begin. 

The structure of this novel feels disjointed and the prose can ramble. Nonetheless, it is another significant story of the inhumane treatment of Jews during WWII. These stories, fictionalized or not, must be known and heard. Though Paul and his family escaped the concentration camps, they experienced their own version of hell.  Secrets and Shadows shows how unspoken trauma can reverberate through families. The novel also reminds us that even when good people band together to confront evil, sometimes it can be too late.