Although the characters have emerged from liberated Europe, they are still steeped in their experiences, traumatized and emotionally paralysed by survivor guilt.
Survivor guilt seems almost the worst part of the experience, with thoughts as pervasive as the intense pain of a frostbitten foot thawing. As we discover the histories of the four main characters, we find that the horror of war can be presented in many guises. With no particular duties and in limbo for an indeterminate period, the women start to come to terms with how life will be for them in the future, safe at last from Nazi persecution, but having lost all their loved ones.Ītlit is not a place where stories are bandied around, but the truth has a way of trickling out to the reader, emerging in little details of tattoos, mannerisms or diseases. They are at least well-fed and humanely treated by their British captors. Though imprisoned again, Atlit camp is emotionally a halfway house between the past and the future for them. With huge effort, hundreds of Jewish men and women reach their promised land, albeit as illegal immigrants. The war machine has ground to a halt, leaving millions of bewildered refugees to find their way out of chaos. So when I say I loved this book, it's a fairly safe bet that you will too.įirst of all, I really liked the unusual pitch for a Second World War novel, set in a detention camp in Palestine in October 1945, soon after the liberation of Europe. Anita Diamant is of that rare species, an author who everyone seems to enjoy reading. Since I adored Pitching My Tent, I couldn't resist picking up Day After Night. I must confess to cheating on my usual practice of selecting new writers to review. Holocaust survivors wait for papers, flashback to the horrors of their own war, and start to come to terms with an unknown future.
Summary: A fine and very readable novel set in a Palestinian detention centre at the end of the Second World War.
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