Book #33 Charlotte

Charlotte by David Foenkinos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'I am deeply, deeply affected by this sad, beautiful, indignant, wrenching, important book... It's stunning' Sarah Perry author of The Essex Serpent. How can I add to that. This story about Charlotte Salomon is heartbreaking - and true. I have read many books about the horrors of Naziism during the 2nd World War and their 'Final Solution'. Charlotte is different. David Foenkinos writes in prose form and it is this simplicity that makes Charlotte's story all the more lucid, inspiring and yet - awful.

Charlotte Salomon was born in Berlin in 1917. Unknown in her lifetime, she was one of Germany's great modern artists. Her greatest achievement was Life? or Theatre?. A song-play - an autobiographical series of 769 works, which she painted in the South of France while in hiding from the Nazis. Salomon died in Auschwitz in 1943, gassed along with her unborn child shortly after her arrival.

Foenkinos's achievement in researching Salomon's story is monumental. His writing has produced a beautifully told memorial of yet another victim of Nazi brutality. As a Jew in Berlin she is torn from her family and chased from her country, seeks refuge in France and pays the ultimate price. Her life.

Everyone should read this book. This exquisite book about an artist named... Charlotte Salomon.

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