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The protagonist of the novel The Passenger, Otto Silbermann, is a wealthy merchant of Jewish origin who lives in Berlin. He fought in the First World War and was awarded the Iron Cross, and before the Nazi takeover he was a respected member of the Berlin burgoeisie.
One evening after the Kristallnacht in November 1938, while the Nazis are at his door, Silbermann leaves his Aryan wife and escapes out the back door of his home and gets on the train, hoping to wait for the morning and the situation to calm down. But faced with the bitter reality of the troubles yet to follow, with a briefcase full of money that he managed to save from the Nazis, he travels aimlessly on trains in Germany, trying not to catch eyes and somehow escape from Germany. During this state of emergency, Silbermann meets numerous individuals, some of whom, like him, are outcasts of the Nazi regime, while others half-heartedly accept that ideology. Refusing to accept the reality of the persecution of Jews in the new Nazi Germany, Silbermann desperately tries to cross the border in different ways, realizing that his own life is more and more threatened by the minute.
* * *
Maybe things aren't half as bad, maybe it's all just psychosis. But no, I would finally have to accept my situation: it is going to get worse, much, much worse! But what's the use of getting upset? Germany must be abandoned! But you can't get in anywhere! Money should be left here, just present it there. It's crazy! If you do something, you expose yourself to criminal prosecution, but if you do nothing, only then will you be punished. It was the same at school. If you solved math problems by yourself, you got a D, if you copied them, you got a B, but if you were caught copying, or if you were honest and didn't even try to solve them, you got an E. The final result is always the same.
* * *
I can't be surprised, he thought, that I'm still alive at all. Now I don't believe in bad memory anymore. But maybe they first want to carefully undress us and then beat us to death so that our clothes don't get bloody and our money doesn't get damaged. Today, killing is done economically. In addition, I participated in the World War. But that was something else. Many against many. Now I am alone and I have to fight my war alone. Am I the conspirator? I would be comfortable then, because then I would know how I have to behave. But I am an ordinary businessman, nothing more. I have no drive at all, that's it. I'm just afraid, and that fear doesn't even mix with the smile of a thief who has a prey he's running after.
- ISBN: 978-953-369-033-9
- Dimensions: 142x205mm
- Number of pages: 224
- Cover: paperback
- Year of the edition: 2023
- Original title: Der Reisende
- Original language: German
- Translation: Hrvoje Gračanin
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