Money from Hitler

Název: Money from Hitler
Počet stran: 242

The novel tells the story of Gita Lauschmannová, who grew up in a German-speaking Jewish family, and her traumatic returns to her hometown in the Sudetenland – after the end of World War II and 60 years later. The book won the Magnesia Litera prize, the Usedom Literary Prize, and the Georg Dehio Prize for the author.

Gita Lauschmannová, a girl barely sixteen, survived the concentration camp and is rushing back to her hometown of Puklic to embrace her loved ones and sleep in her own bed after years of horrors and suffering. She returned to find that she has nowhere to return to. The war may have ended, but the rampage has not. Gita Lauschmannová, an energetic woman at the end of her life, harshly marked by fate. She did not allow her life to be completely disfigured. Accumulated memories come to life. Gita takes the blindfold off. Bravely, mercilessly. But time grinds everything and everyone in its own way. Can justice be achieved despite this? Can punishment for barbaric acts be obtained? Can wrongs be righted? Yes and no. However, each person must eat their own plate. Above all, stay in control, don’t collapse, don’t scream. The author’s second prose book is once again a grotesquely dark story, a panopticon in which the reflections of the stories we ourselves live shine.

Returning from a concentration camp does not mark the end of all evil – this is one way to characterize Radek Denemark’s book “Hitler’s Money: Summer Mosaic”. This is not a new release from this year, it was published six years ago and has had a second edition (2009) and subsequent reprint this year. In the meantime, it has won several awards – the Magnesia Litera in 2007, the Usedom Literary Prize in 2011, and most recently the German Georg Dehio Book Prize (2012).

Jiří Lojín, VašeLiteratura.cz

Money from Hitler

Radka Denemarková

Radka Denemarková