NANCY KRICORIAN’S HOLOCAUST NOVEL
The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A
June 10 2013
BY ELEANOR BADER
Several years ago, novelist Nancy Kricorian happened upon a 29-year-old
documentary film called “Terrorists in Retirement” by French filmmaker
Mosco Boucault. The movie chronicled the work of a World War II-era
anti-Nazi resistance network in France that was made up of Armenian,
Italian, Spanish and Jewish immigrants and led by Missak Manouchian,
a survivor of the Armenian genocide who had escaped to France in 1925
as a teenager.
The film fired Kricorian’s imagination and sent her searching for
more information about the men and women who formed this largely
unheralded anti-fascist effort. The result was “All The Light There
Was,” a novel that beautifully conjures both the Manouchian resistance
and the Armenian refugee community of the 1940s. Readers are brought
into the Rue de Belleville in working-class Paris to experience the
terror of falling bombs, the misery of food shortages and the horror
of watching Jews, Communists and other ‘undesirables’ suddenly removed
from a tight-knit community.
The story is told in the voice of the fictional Maral Pegorian, 16,
a hard-working girl who wants nothing more than to help her family and
excel in her studies. Her older brother, Missak, is less academically
inclined and as the Nazis–who are called by the derogatory name Boche,
or cabbage heads, by most Belleville residents–take claim to France,
he becomes part of a well-oiled underground forgery operation.
What’s more, while the family fears for its own health and safety,
all of them risk their lives to help save a Jewish child who might
otherwise have perished in a concentration camp. They shroud this
deed in secrecy lest a pro-Nazi neighbor report them.
The story is given additional heft by the fact that Maral and Missak’s
parents and adult circle are survivors of the Armenian genocide,
a three-year atrocity that began in April 1915. Under the government
of a group called the Young Turks, between 1 million and 1.5 million
people were killed. As the characters’ emotional scars are opened by
Hitler’s incursion into their adopted homeland, the novel showcases
the post-traumatic stress that lingers long after a particular conflict
finally grinds to a halt.
Kricorian’s touch is light, but the residual impact of war is
nonetheless palpable. Maral and Missak’s Aunt Shakeh, for example,
malnourished and physically ill, goes into a deep depression–and
literally takes to her bed–once the war begins. For her, violence
and death trigger nightmares and negative memories: ‘We saw it all,’
she tells her niece. ‘Our parents dead before our eyes. Bodies in
the dirt. Children with big bellies and heads, arms and legs skinny
as spiders. It is the same thing again, the way they sent us to die
in the desert.’ To Shakeh, it seems obvious that Hitler used the
anti-Armenian campaign as a prototype for his own brand of murderous
destruction, a hideous replay of a hideous history.
If this makes “All the Light There Was” sound unbearably heavy, rest
assured that Kricorian weaves in enough romance and coming-of-age
sexuality to keep the pages turning. Maral’s main love interest is
Zaven, a boy whose parents also fled to France to escape the Turks.
But several other eager male suitors appear. One, a Soviet Armenian
named Andon, enlisted and served in the German Army, and Maral is
quick to rebuke him for this decision. Later, she learns that the
issue is complicated by his status as a former prisoner of war in
what was then the USSR.
‘Why did you join the German Army?’ Maral asks.
‘General Dro came to the POW camp,’ Andon explains. ‘He was a hero
of the Russian Caucasus Army during the First World War, and he saved
many Armenian lives during the deportations. He was the first defense
minister of the Armenian Republic. When he came to the POW camp, he
said, ‘Men, we do not know how this war will end, but when it does
Hayastan [Armenia] will need you, so put on the German uniform.”
Dro’s rationale was based on a promise made by Germany: If they
defeated the Soviets, an independent Armenia would be established.
Although Andon now feels that he was duped, he also believes that
what is done is done, and he hopes to be forgiven by Maral. She,
however, is conflicted. She knows that her brother Missak and his
comrades will be furious that she is keeping company with someone
they’ll dub a collaborator, but in her heart of hearts, she believes
that Andon was na ve and simply made a terrible mistake. Whether or
not she can get past her reservations, however, is one of the book’s
ethical conundrums and is the kind of question that makes a war fought
more than half a century ago relevant to today’s readers.
The dilemmas that Maral, Andon and Missak face–besides having
lived through a world war, questions arise about gender roles,
sexual politics and the quest for personal autonomy–are believable
and well-rendered. Maral, a dutiful and obedient girl-turned-woman,
struggles with what she believes is an either/or proposition–to be a
wife and mother, as expected, or to pursue her education and a career.
Similarly, Missak has to decide between loyalty to family and loyalty
to self, a fraught choice that crops up in every generation and among
all populations.
As the personal and political bump heads in “All the Light There Was,”
a host of possibilities for individual fulfillment are laid bare.
What’s more, the possibility of multi-ethnic solidarity–the
Manouchian-like coalition against a common Nazi enemy–is also writ
large. Still, the book ends with many open questions–about the future
of organizing in peacetime as well about choosing a meaningful life
path–questions that cannot be easily answered, either in fiction or
in life.
Eleanor Bader is a teacher and freelance writer from Brooklyn, N.Y.
She is a frequent contributor to The Brooklyn Rail, RHRealityCheck.org,
and elevateddifference.org. This review appeared originally in In
These Times. Reprinted with permission of Featurewell.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/books/article/nancy_kricorians_holocaust_novel