Night and Fog

Sailing across the Atlantic with two friends, the author, a concentration camp survivor, finally comes to terms with his memories and nightmares

As a student in Norway in 1944, Lie, a member of the resistance, was captured and transported to Germany, into Nacht und Nebel , night and fog. He spent the duration of the war in three concentration camps. Writing with freelancer Robinson, he relates that he bore the psychic scars of that experience for 40 years, finally achieving catharsis on a sailing trip with two friends from Boston to his homeland. Lie, now a Massachusetts "fish farmer," tells us that in exorcising his demons, he arrived at a deeper humanity, a belief that people should not divide the world into "us" and "them" but must work to create unity. Although the concentration camp story has been related many times, readers will find Lie's memoir especially moving and inspiring.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In 1944 19-year-old Arne Lie was arrested in his family home in Norway for involvement in a resistance raid. Transported from one camp to another, finally ending up in Dachau, Lie watched the boys he'd grown up with die around him. With luck, guile, determination to survive, and the aid of friends, he made it through, but for over 40 years he was unable to come to terms with the experience. Haunted by nightmares, Lie finally found meaning in his ordeal as he wrote about it on a sailing trip across the Atlantic. His camp memories are absorbing, but intercutting them with the voyage dissipates the effect. Still moving, though, and recommended for public libraries.
- Pat Ensor, Indiana State Univ. Lib., Terre Haute
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.