![]() ![]() ![]() The students condemn not only direct perpetrators of the crimes but also the bystanders and accommodators who had accepted the perpetrators’ activities during the Nazi regime and accepted them back into society after the war-in short, the previous generation.Īs part of the class, the students attend the trial on a weekly basis. Michael, along with his classmates, become zealous crusaders intent on uncovering the atrocities of the Third Reich. ![]() Six years later, Michael is a young law student taking a class that centers on a trial concerning the concentration camps. As time passes, along with his pain and guilt, he appears to move on, adopting a mask of “arrogant superiority.” Though his friendships and relationships come easily to him, he is at times cold and at others overemotional. Part 2 begins with Michael’s struggle to overcome the pain of losing Hanna, who haunts his dreams and thoughts. Plagued by guilt, Michael believes that his betrayal and his hesitation caused her to leave. The next day, Hanna is nowhere to be found, and after asking around at her building, her employer, and the citizens’ registration office, he discovers that she has denied a promotion and moved away. Unsure of what to do, he hesitates before getting up, but in that moment she is gone. One day, while Michael is at the swimming pool, he sees Hanna from a distance. As he grows closer to his friends but neglects to tell them about Hanna, he begins to feel as if he is betraying her by denying her importance in his life. Whenever he has fights with Hanna he comes increasingly resentful of how she bullies him into surrendering, but he also always begs for forgiveness, as he is afraid of losing her. He begins to go to the swimming pool with his classmates, and becomes torn between spending time with his friends and spending time with Hanna. When Michael starts a new school year in the 11th grade, he makes new friends, including Sophie, on whom he has a crush. Michael tells her that he left a note, but Hanna claims that there was no note. To Michael’s great shock, she hits him with a belt, and then bursts into tears, because he left with no explanation. However, when she returns, she is furious. One morning, Michael decides to get Hanna breakfast before she wakes up and leaves a note. On their vacation, they begin their days making love and spend the rest of the day cycling. Hanna leaves all the logistics to Michael, who orders food from menus, registers them as mother and son at the inns, and plans their route on his maps. Later, when Hanna becomes interested in Michael’s studies, she makes his reading aloud to her a condition for sex, and their routine soon incorporates reading before their shower.ĭuring his Easter vacation, Michael plans a bicycle trip for the two of them. The two then begin a continuing affair, including this ritual of showering and sex. Hanna runs a bath for him and seduces him. He does so but returns covered in coal dust after accidentally dislodging a pile of coal. To his delight Hanna is not annoyed with him and merely asks him to fetch some coal from the cellar. However, a few days later, he visits Hanna’s apartment again, intending to apologize. Embarrassed to be caught, he flees and later is plagued with guilt for fantasizing about her. Months later, after urging from his mother, Michael returns to the woman’s apartment in order to thank her, but as the woman is preparing to walk him out, he finds himself unable to stop watching her get dressed. One of the building’s tenants, 36-year-old Hanna Schmitz rescues him, cleaning him up and bringing him back home, where his doctor diagnoses him with hepatitis. In Part 1, a 15-year-old Michael is on his way home when he becomes violently ill by the side of a building. The narrator, Michael Berg, tells the story of his teenage affair with a former Nazi prison guard and its aftermath. ![]()
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