The House of One Thousand Eyes

Written by Michelle Barker

Annick Press

978-1-77321-071-1

354 pp.

Ages 14+

2018

The House of One Thousand Eyes is a dark book but 1980s East Berlin was a dark time and place. It was a time of the Berlin Wall and the Stasi (the State Security Service) and repression of thought, opportunity and interaction. It was a time of oppression and control and secret-keeping. It was dark and even more so for seventeen-year-old Lena Altmann.

When she lost her parents in a factory explosion, Lena was sent to an asylum. After three years of treatment, she was released into the care of her aunt, a Party member, who treats Lena as a simpleton in need of direction to prevent her readmission to the hospital.

... but Auntie was a good citizen, and goodness was rewarded.
     Badness, however, got you a one-way ticket to smartening up ... (pg. 57)

Unfortunately, her Uncle Erich, whom she adores and visits weekly, is a writer and a man of opinions and insight. 

Paper could get a person in trouble. When you wrote something down, you gave it life and made it yours. (pg. 22)

When she witnesses the removal of his things from his flat and finds a new tenant in place who tells her he has lived there for five years, Lena wonders whether she is delusional. She is told by all that she has no uncle. She cannot locate any of his books at the bookstores or library (her own have disappeared as have her photos of him) and is told there is no birth record of such person.

Working as a night cleaner at Stasi headquarters, also know as the House of One Thousand Eyes, Lena tries to determine what happened to her uncle and cut through the deceit and illusion that all is right in the "Better Berlin." But will the wall she has built up in her own mind continue to protect her from harmful thoughts and brutality such as that she suffers nightly at the hands of one Stasi officer? Or is it like the real Berlin Wall, still in place in 1983, doing more harm than good or in danger of crumbling?

The House of One Thousand Eyes is a brilliant novel of historical fiction. The setting may only have been thirty-six years ago, still in my lifetime, but it's of a time and place so inaccessible, concealed in the propaganda disseminated by those in power and perpetuated by those choosing to survive at all costs, that it will seem far more distant.  It is a hard and dark time for East Berliners who had to choose whether to deceive themselves about the inequities perpetrated by a corrupt regime or to suffer the consequences, as does Lena's uncle, for free thought and disapproval. Just as Uncle Erich knows about veiling one story in another, Michelle Barker's subtext about mental health, social inequalities and the freedom of expression is never lost in the story of Lena as she searches for her uncle and tries to make sense of a world that often made no sense at all. But Michelle Barker builds up Lena's worlds, real and "schrullig," into a monument that honours lives lived with courage and conviction, never blocking the light of truth, and she does so with strength of words and greatness of style.

Graffiti Knight

by Karen Bass

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-53-8

288 pp.

Ages 12+

August, 2013

Many books of historical fiction focus on the atrocities and hardships of war time but few examine the aftermath of war, especially for civilians in the defeated countries.  Children's fiction and non-fiction of life in Nazi Germany abound, particularly for those who were victimized by the Nazis.  But, after Germany's surrender in 1945, its lands were divided between four occupation zones administered by the British, Americans, French and Soviets, as well as having certain lands inhabited by Germans recovered by Poland and Czechoslovakia. This is the story of Wilhelm Tauber and his family and friends as they endure life in the town of Leipzig in the Soviet-controlled sector of Germany.

Wilhelm, who prefers to be called Wilm, as he perennially tells his father, has much that angers him about Leipzig's current circumstances.  His father, who returned from war without one leg, is bitter about his loss and limited opportunities, and is regularly antagonistic to Wilm. His mother works as much as she can to help provide for the family.  His older sister, Anneliese, spends much of her time in her room, except when she goes to work, dressed in boy's clothing.  His friend, Georg, whose father died in the war, is essentially starving.  His friend, Karl, has a father who was taken to a POW camp but he knows nothing else of his fate.  And school is tedium for Wilm, doing well in math but only when applicable to real life.  But the harassment of the Schupos, the German police under Soviet control, and the Soviets themselves, have created a prison for all in Leipzig, restricting their movements, their food, their opinions–all their freedoms–and evoking fear, compliance and silence.  But nothing can compare to the anger Wilm experiences when he learns that Anneliese was raped by four Soviet soldiers at the train station where she went to meet her boyfriend, Ernst Weber, who promptly dropped her because she was no longer "untouched".

The game that Wilm, Karl and Georg regularly played, spying on the Schupos, pretending to be behind enemy lines and collecting intelligence for the Americans, becomes more real after Wilm begins taking chances to humiliate the Schupos and the Soviets, starting with the slashing of tires on several Soviet vans.  An older man, Otto Steinhauer, an engineer contracted to inspect bridges, intercedes when Karl and Wilm begin fighting over Wilm's negligence.  Soon Otto becomes a mentor to Wilm teaching him about bridges, math and engineering, as well as talking with him about Wilm's father, dealing with those in authority, and trust.

With the continued hostilities from the Soviets and the Schupos, including that of Anneliese's ex-boyfriend, Ernst, now a Schupo, Wilm feels compelled to escalate his attacks, becoming known as the Marionette Wolverine for the stickman puppet graffiti he leaves as his mark. But Wilm's resolve to get an innocent Georg released from jail has him questioning his own motives and actions, particularly after a final explosive act forces him to flee Leipzig, with friends and family in tow.  What begins as civil disobedience in search of justice becomes a harrowing escape, jeopardizing the lives of all for whom he cares.

Karen Bass' thorough research, as she describes in her Historical Notes at the back of the book, provides the authentic background for Graffiti Knight, challenging all that readers might think they know about Nazi Germany and its aftermath.  While all will see the Nazis as the criminals to humanity, we often forget that for others, the Soviets were just as barbaric to their victims, using some different means to oppress.  By seeing Leipzig and other parts of Germany through the eyes of a young man of sixteen, who lives through World War II but experiences further injustice in its aftermath, when so many were celebrating victory, Karen Bass provides enlightenment via a new perspective.  Heroes are not just made in war.  Courage and compassion, the virtues of heroes anywhere and anytime, can make a knight out of anyone, even Wilm.