BOOK REVIEW FIVE STARS
The Collaborator by Diane Armstrong
The Collaborator is a captivating historical novel laced with factual incidents that build suspense while enticing you with apprehension. This fast moving story is spellbinding from beginning to end, edited with surprising twists and turns.
EXCERPTS;
She learns that in 1944 the Nazis invaded Hungary and disenfranchised the Jews with the co-operation of the government. Horrified, she tries to imagine a world where your government turns against you, where phones are disconnected, radios confiscated, car and bus travel forbidden, bank accounts frozen, and employment terminated. You wake up one day and discover that you are a despised nonperson in your own country. He knows that for most people, denying reality is preferable to confronting a disturbing truth.
One way or another, for noble motives or base ones, or merely from self-interest and the urge to survive, war turns us all into collaborators.
‘Everyone believes in peace in theory,’ he says quietly. ‘It’s the reality that’s the problem. For peace to take place, both parties have to want it, not just one.
We believe that if you wait for the other side to give in nothing will ever change. And if we let our government keep stealing Palestinian land and building more settlements, things will only get worse.’
They call themselves Israel First. They reckon we’re Palestinian collaborators, and threaten us with divine vengeance because we’re agitating for a two-state solution,’ he said. ‘They could be connected with the extremists who killed my grandfather, but even if they’re not, they might know something about Moshe Binsztok. Just tread carefully. They’re zealots with fundamentalist ideas and they don’t take kindly to opposing views.’
‘It’s like what George Bernard Shaw said about communism. If you’re not a communist when you’re young, you have no heart, but if you’re still a communist when you’re old, you have no brain.’
A point to ponder: When a slave finally over throws his master the first thing the freed slave does is go out and get himself a slave.
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