Menasse, Eva. Darkenbloom. Translated by Charlotte Collins. Scribe, 2024.

Times are unspeakably ominous now.Even the act of writing a book review about any aspect of our Jewish story takes on additional resonance.I have written about all sorts of Jewish tragedies, but never felt truly threatened until now.October 7 th was a wake-up call.And then there was the horror I felt watching huge marches all around the globe, revealing half-covered faces with eyes bulging with the old Jewish hatred I had spent my life reading about.Israel's safety and Jewish safety seem in freefall.Perhaps that's why I felt anxious approaching Eva Menasse's novelistic masterwork about yet another Jewish calamity.Eva Menasse is a 55-year-old half-Jewish Austrian author and journalist who has written a lengthy novel about an imaginary town called "Darkenbloom" located on the Austrian-Hungarian border.The novel takes place during the last days of the Second World War, and in 1989, when a few of Darkenbloom's more feisty residents finally felt ready to deal with truths they had denied for decades.Menasse has said in interviews that this new novel is based on an actual event that happened in Rechnitz, Austria.So, I feel it is appropriate to start here.Austria was annexed by the Third Reich in 1938.The Rechnitz massacre of 180 Hungarian Jewish laborers took place on March 24, 1945.Local Nazi officials and Hitler Youth were given weapons to participate in the killings.18 of the Jews were forced to bury the victims and then were murdered the following day.The mass graves have never been found.Most of the perpetrators escaped justice.The local Gestapo chief who planned the massacre, Franz Podezin, disappeared in 1945.In Austria, since the Nazi war, there has been great reticence to confront the past.Historians like Wolfgang Benz and Winfred Garscha have participated in an ongoing cover-up, disputing accusations they have been asked to explain.Yet, one local historian named Walter Manoschek wrote about the massacre with rigorous honesty, admitting that this sort of event was only one of many that took place throughout the country at that time.Local villagers, for the most part, remained silent.Crucial evidence was destroyed.But Walter Manoschek continued his crusade to expose what happened to the Jews of Austria despite his colleague's reticence to do so.