A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell - Book Report/Review Example

Those who take on the difficult have a tough but satisfying life. Those who take on the impossible are remembered.”(Anonymous) The time of II World War was a life of challenges not only for the political leaders and military generals, but for the common men also. “The Thread of Grace” by Mary Doria is a book that depicts the saga of a set of common men and women, who exhibited extraordinary courage, in saving the lives of another set common men, whose lives were in peril. I would classify this as a humanitarian and complex historical novel.

When I try to understand the sequence of events in the story, I sincerely feel that there is still hope for humanity. To help one in the normal course is a good gesture. To help one in the circumstances when the helper’s life and property are threatened is a herculean task that needs extraordinary commendation! The mention of the word Jew at a time when Hitler threatened and gave them the ultimate punishment of suffocating death in gas chambers, Italian soldiers were escorting a group of Jewish refugees to safety.

They make their way through the meandering steep and dangerous mountain pass, and taken to a village where they were received warmly and offered food. They were just resting and the news came like a bolt from the blue that Mussolini had surrendered Italy to Hitler. They were into the fire from the frying pan! The saga of struggle for survival begins! The narratives in the story may be fictional and it goes to the credit of Mary Doria and the art of her writing. But the fact remains that a group of Italian citizens sheltered about 40000 Jews from the frightening experience of camp life and executions.

The novel does not end with a happy note and no war has ever ended on that note. War always means death and destruction. The silver lining is the joint efforts of the native Jews of the village headed by the Chief rabbi Iacopo Sonicini and the Catholics, like Sant'Andrea's priest Don Osvaldo Tomitz, who took initiatives to shelter the Jews. The book is full of gory incidents of murders and annihilations of the Jews and any book dealing with the adventures of Hitler is bound to have such details.

But this one is stunning. The confession of drunken Nazi deserter in an inebriated state, to Don Osvaldo that while working in state hospitals and Auschwitz, he is credited with the murders of about one hundred thousand Jews! This is the pointer to the gravity of the situation—as to what might have happened in the warfronts, when the blood-thirsty German soldiers were at their beastly best to fulfill the wishes and commands of their supreme leader Adolph Hitler! For me, even its imagination is mindboggling and awfully frightening!

No one knew who would live and who would die and that was applicable to the killers of the Jews as well! Mussolini, who was initially the protector of the Jews of his country, turned to be their killer subsequently. Strange are the ways of political compulsions! How many beautiful souls, men, women and children were destroyed for no faults of theirs—without any rhyme and reason! How vulnerable the Jews were and the race nearly faced extinction from the face of Planet Earth! And finally Russel concludes the novel by recording her observations thus: “Hidden in isolated cottages, Protected by the population, They waited with trust and hope, Through to interminable winters, For the return of the liberty, In homage to and in memory of those who helped them, Those refugees and their descendants,