Fatherland by Johanna Moore Baxandall
After her death, Johanna Moore Baxandall’s typewritten manuscript, the basis of Fatherland, was discovered by family. It’s apparently a (lightly) fictionalized memoir of Baxandall’s childhood in Nazi Germany. Although they weren’t Jewish, the family faced difficulties because of the father’s Communist Party membership. He was arrested when Hitler took power and released after a short time, the common fate of low-ranking party members.
Although she never seems to have pursued writing as a vocation, Baxandall’s Fatherland shows a gift for description and narrative. It notes the sorts of things a schoolgirl in a small town would observe—teachers, homework, play, family spats, bickering neighbors—as well as the mysterious disappearance of the town’s Jews. For the story’s protagonist, at least, there was a happy ending.
