King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein, 1979 A Holocaust novel unlike any other By Zachary Solomon Lodz was the last remaining ghetto in Poland when it was destroyed in the spring of 1944. This was no accident: the ghetto was an industrial powerhouse for the Nazis, containing, at its height, nearly 100 factories dealing in textiles and manufactured goods—all made by the hands of forced Jewish labor. Like his real-life inspiration, Trumpelman is an unknowable, often merciless character who willingly facilitates the deportation of Jewish children to the camps only to broker improvements for those who remain. He believes that sacrificing Jews in order to save Jews is a worthy calculus. We can't tell if he's a martyr or a murderous lunatic. He is probably both. Told more like a fable than a realist narrative, Epstein's novel replaces Germans and Nazis with "the occupying power" and "warriors." There's none of the runaway horror here that’s present in other Holocaust novels. Epstein relies on humor and farce. The Nazis weren't atypical, the book suggests—they were ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The Jews, likewise, weren't atypical either. They were regular people who were also capable of committing regular sins. King of the Jews wasn't the first book to make this case, but it’s certainly among the best to do so. Read an Excerpt Judge Trumpelman (and Epstein) for yourself with an excerpt from King of the Jews.
Get Your Copy Explore More What did Epstein get right, and what did he get wrong in his depiction of Jewish life in the ghettos before and during World War II? Learn the history here. Your next email in the "Great Jewish Books" series will arrive in a few days. Stay tuned to explore a seminal Jewish novel from the 1980s. |