Gotz And Meyer - Softcover

Albahari, David; Elias-Bursac, Ellen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156031108 ISBN 13: 9780156031103

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2006

Synopsis

Götz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, “not a big one,” but one that “requires efficiency.” Their task is to transport prisoners from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are asphyxiated. 
The nameless narrator of Götz and Meyer, a Jewish school­teacher, discovers Wilhelm Götz and Erwin Meyer while researching the deaths of his relatives. Overwhelmed by the horror of his discoveries as they become entangled with his own feverish imaginings, he organizes a class trip. The school bus becomes Götz and Meyer’s truck, and the teacher and his students merge with Belgrade’s lost souls in a sacred act of remembering.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"A gorgeous work of the imagination about an act of imagination. The tone is pure, as strange as can be, and hypnotizing."—Deborah Eisenberg, Bomb magazine

The nameless narrator of Götz and Meyer, a Jewish schoolteacher, discovers Wilhelm Götz and Erwin Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, while researching his family tree. Overwhelmed by the horror of his discoveries as they become entangled with his own feverish imaginings, he organizes a class trip during which the teacher and his students connect with Belgrade’s lost souls in a sacred act of remembering.
"From two names, Albahari conjures imaginary souls whose lives represent all those whom history has forgotten."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Ranks with the best of Holocaust literature."—Chicago Tribune

"Has a resonance beyond its own times."—Richard Eder, The Boston Globe

DAVID ALBAHARI is the prize-winning author of several collections of short stories and novels. He was for many years the editor-in-chief of Pismo, a magazine of world literature, and lived in Belgrade. He now lives in Calgary, Canada.

From the Inside Flap

Götz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, "not a big one," but one that "requires efficiency." Their task is to transport five thousand women, children and elderly, one hundred at a time, from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are gassed. As Albahari's anonymous narrator, a teacher, obsessively pursues the truth of this systematic annihilation, he shares his findings with his students. Their school bus becomes that truck, and as the memory of Belgrade's lost Jewish souls is evoked, the students are bewildered. Their teacher, worn down as much by the task of making history come alive as by the toll his research has taken on him, is overwhelmed by the horror of his own imaginings.

A harrowing, masterfully written story, full of compassion, irony, and lyricism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0156031108
• ISBN 13: 9780156031103
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176