aneb židovská dobrodružství křesťanského chlapce, když skončilo šoa
To be published: Q2 2024
Gojele. The Jewish adventures of a Christian boy after the end of Shoah. This partly autobiographical novel by Czech-German writer Karl von Wetzky takes place shortly after the Second World War. Twelve years old Heinrich Adolf and his mother are about to be deported to Germany, so they set off for a centre in northern Moravia that gathers Germans from the Bohemia for resettlement. However, by coincidence and due to a clerical error, they arrive in a small town where the surviving Jews are concentrated, preparing for their journey to Palestine.
His mother gets a job there thanks to her expertise, and for the boy, later called Gojele, it is a time full of twists and turns, difficult trials, but also a time filled with friendship, selfless help and adventure. The existing world view and the Nazi ideology, which the young hero had been drilled into his head at school, collide with the previously unrecognised and completely different world of the Jews, their traditions, language, religion and cuisine. Despite the ingrained misconceptions of each other’s world and the hostility that often turns to hatred, the German boy finds his way to the Jewish inhabitants of the town – and they to him – learning their language and penetrating a culture that will influence him for life.