Lenaribka

This review has been crossed posted to Jessewave

Brilliantly written.
Provoking.
Shocking.
Horrifying.
Disturbing.
Sad.
Captivating.
Heartbreaking.
Honest.
Painfully beautiful.
Nothing compare with.



Well...I think, I've never found myself in a situation when I felt obliged to explain my rating. But I owe it to my GR friends.

I don't remember WHY and WHEN I bought it. It seems to be for an eternity on my kindle. Unread. And every time I came across its cover I was angry with myself for buying it, for my presumption to wanting to read something like this, for being tempted by some great reviews. And then one day I decided that I didn't want to have it any longer on my kindle. I decided to get rid of this book. I decided to prove to myself what for a wasteful purchase it was. I didn't want to come across this cover any more. I wanted AT LAST to delete it from my kindle. It is WHY I started to read it. And I was transformed into another world, into another time, I LOST my connection to the reality, I was LOST in Erich's mind. I was locked within/terrified by/suffered with Erich. I. LOST. MYSELF. I've read through the night. I had an interview on the next day. I got up 4 hours before to be able to finish this book. I. COULDN'T. PUT. IT. DOWN. I didn't care about this interview. I really didn't. I wanted to read further.


Some history facts before I explain my further thoughts:

In 1935, the Nazis broadened the law(Paragraph 175) so that the courts could pursue any "lewd act" whatsoever, even one involving no physical contact. Convictions multiplied by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year. Furthermore, the Gestapo could transport suspected offenders to concentration camps without any legal justification at all (even if they had been acquitted or already served their sentence in jail). Thus, between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexual men were forced into concentration camps, where they were identified by the pink triangle. The majority of them died there.

[b:Schadenfreude|10711584|Schadenfreude|19|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398491224s/10711584.jpg|15622045] tells us the story of Erich Kass, a sixteen year old boy, who was arrested by Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp for "one dry brush, of lips against lips." Not even a real kiss.
This book is not a war crime non-fiction book, though the graphical descriptions of medical torture, violence, pain are inexpressible. This book is psychological thriller, an unique mind-blowing masterpiece. You don't read about Erich's feelings, you suffer from his feelings of horror, fright, despair, panic and...need and surrender. The relationship between Erich and Ahren Kaltherzig, a medical doctor whose mission is to find an effective treatment for curing THIS particular disease, is difficult to explain, hard to understand, heavy to read, but I believe that this kind of connection, in spite of a fictional nature of this story, could have been existed, they felt so real, credible and weirdly impressing. Stockholm Syndrome vs. Sadism and Masochism, abuse, physical vs. psychological, obsession vs. possession. But it is much more than just this.

It is a fiction book, but it has never felt like being thought out or fictional, every single second of it felt REAL. And it is the most shocking thing about this book. I know, it is a question of ethic or moral - How far could a writer go with his imagination. I repeat again, it is not a non-fiction book - an author takes a well known history fact (the Nazi persecution of homosexuals is reasonably well-known today), and makes a fascinating story out of it. A psycho story. A BDSM story- how I normally DISLIKE this kind of books!...A love story. A provoking story...the story that will always stay with me. The story that is both beautiful and shocking.

You have to step out of you comfort zone if you decide to give it a try. I can't recommend it highly enough. You SHOULD give it a try.



I appeal to the author to change a cover. It leaves a lot of space for misunderstanding and wrong interpretation, and scares away the potential readers. That's very pity!


P.S Here is an excellent review. Read it. And then the book.