Jiri Weil has here a masterpiece, a series of events involving a host of characters. Children hiding in a closet, German soldiers of high and low rank, elderly Jewish council members and scholars. What really chills me was my visit to the Holocaust museum days after finishing this book. The identification papers you draw upon entering that I received were for a man in the exact region of my Slovak grandparents. Before leaving much later that day, I viewed newsreels in the library. They provided actual background for the description of Reinhard Heydrich's assassination, told in detail in Weil's book. I highly recommend this excellent book.

In short vignettes, the author explores the difficult choices faced by the people of World War II Prague, from Reinhard Heydrich (never named by name) to individual soldiers, civil servants and Czechs and Jews of all stripes. Some episodes are absurd and full of humor, particularly the moment when the workers try to identify which statue on the roof is actually Mendelssohn's (they choose the one with the largest nose and are about to make the maximum possible error when they are stopped in the nick of time). Others are almost painful to read, such as the choices of a Jewish scholar hired to work on the museum built to illustrate the lives of his people; he realizes the purpose is to describe a people who are to be eliminated from the face of the earth.

Unlike many Holocaust novels, this book presents its points in a subtle and wonderful manner. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This book opens with a black humor scene: how to remove the statue of Mendelssohn from the Prague concert hall during the Nazi occupation? From there, it shifts to short portraits of the gestapo, guards, ghetto residents, children, etc., all living in Pragu and trying to succeed/survive. It has been a long time since I have read a book so moving as this, and I highly recommend it

This book is amazing in its realism and emotion. The symbolism takes time to understand but when you do the book takes you to another level. The courage of the Jews and Czech people is heartening and brings another diminsion to what is commonly thought about when you think of WW2. An excellent book that I encourage everyone to read.

Unlike many survivor's accounts, Weil's novel (which I assume from the biographical material prefacing this work is probably quite autobiographical) does not deal with any aftermath to the Holocaust. The book breaks off just as the narrator chooses to hide and therefore conitnue his fight against the never-named but omnipresent "them."

The rapacity and cunning of "them" remind you of Art Speigelman's "Maus," and I wonder if he read this novel earlier. The picture of daily life outside the camps is told with details which constantly circle back to the narrator's lost (married) lover, and understandably, these obsessions only fade gradually, as the transports impinge more directly upon the Jews.

The metaphor of the circus, in which the only animals are people, is sustained admirably in this section of the novel, and the translation conveys well the bare irony of the minimalist style. Almost childlike in its observations, the tone of the novel may be off-putting to some readers wanting more elaborated insight. It took me about sixty or seventy pages to get used to the rhythm, and only in the halfway point did it fully compel me. But I read it in one sitting.

Why? By its steady momentum, you are carried into the horror even as it does not overwhelm you. Through the control of the protagonist, you too gain control over the situation, and resolve to resist the temptation to give in to complacency.

The characters remain in your memory: Roubitschek and his onion, the narrator's almost comic aunt and uncle who blame the whole Nazi invasion it seems on their nephew, Ruzema's memory, and most of all, Tomas the cat. Rarely has a pet assumed such an evocative place in such a story. The daily task of finding food when you can buy so little. The scene of the names being called for transport in the synagogue, the depictions of the grave digging detail, the narrator's shattered home, and the growing despair that battles against the realization that the slow advance of the Allies means that people "out there" are actually fighting to save the narrator: all these add up subtly to a powerful testimony.

The narrator must wear a star that shines only at day, that gives no warmth, that is pinned over one's own heart, but over the course of the novel, he realizes that his status as the "other" frees him (almost like a Camus character) to live.
Worthy of comparison to Imre Kertesz' "Fateless," and Primo Levi's memoirs, this overlooked novel deserves much wider attention. Read it and see why.

Weil takes his character Josef Rubicek through budding romance, poverty on the outskirts, danger, demeaning treatment, and the daily effort to survive, in Prague during the Holocaust. Rubicek is slow to understand what is happening around him, but eventually realizes the significance of the regulations that get announced daily, the restrictions that are put on his world, and the anguish of those he encounters. It's a very moving book throughout, even when Rubicek is lost in reveries over a romantic liaison which has been ended by the authorities.

I read 'Night' by Elie Wiesel, and although I sensed the horror of the Holocaust, I didn't actually feel it. Some time later I read 'Life with a Star', and finally felt it, deep inside. This book is an incredible description of a Jew's life outside the camps during the war. I highly recommend it.