TRAGEDY OF REFUGEES

Evening Star, Issue 23693, 28 September 1940, Page 4

TRAGEDY OF REFUGEES

There is something tragic about Scpp Trautwein, refugee composer from Munich, who is the central figure of Lion Fcuchtwanger’s ‘ Paris Gazette.’ The tragedy lies in the fact that Sepp Trautwein in his life and outlook on life, in his desire and hope that he will some day be able to return to a happier Fatherland, seems to epitomise Dr Feuchtwanger’s own exiled existence and outlook at the time of writing. In a postscript the author expresses not only his own hope that he will be able to return to his homeland some day, but also his conviction that ultimately reason will triumph over unreason, thus assuring a happy return. Well, it seems Dr Feuchtwanger’s period of exile has ended, but not as he would have wanted; for it is reported he was taken prisoner by the Nazis when France was defeated.

‘ Paris Gazette ’ is the third of a‘ trilogy, the first two of which were ‘ Success ’ and ‘ The Oppermanns.’ When the day of return for which the author longed proved a fact.he hoped to add an epilogue to the trilogy, entitled ‘ Return.’ Whether ‘ Return ’ will ever appear now remains to be seen, but one can hardly imagine that Dr Feuchtwanger, if only for his references to the Nazi regime in ‘ Paris Gazette,’ wdll be treated as a guest of honour in the country he fled years ago. The importance of ‘ Paris Gazette as an immediate picture of conditions in Europe has gone now through the rapid changes in 12 months of war, but as a document in which events and characters are historically true, if not strictly real, the lengthy work—it boasts G 72 demy octavo pages—should always have a value as a record of one of the most unfortunate periods of history. a period through which the author himself suffered and lived as his refined novel characters, confronted by a grim existence utterly foreign to ttieir customary lot, suffered and lived. The story concerns the lives of exiles and their struggle to maintain their own newspaper, ‘ Paris Gazette.’ It is a hard and bitter struggle, and in the end their efforts are sabotaged by agents of the Third Reich, the paper being substituted by the ‘ Paris German Gazette,’ an event, the author states, based on actual fact.. It is probable that Dr Feuchtwanger has done

nothing better than ‘ Paris Gazette ’ j certainly it is a novel which the average person will find easier to read than most of his other works, and the very,: real characters are people with whom it is a simple matter to sympathise and t to admire.' Messrs Hutchinson and Company are the publishers, our copy being received from Messrs Whitcombs and Tombs.