Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Paul Gardner, Hybrid Publishers, $32.99.
This is an engrossing Holocaust-related story of courage and heroism in times of despotism.
As Gardner says in the Prologue: “Ordinary people faced with extraordinary situations can sometimes act in extraordinary ways. This book is about such a man, Gerhard Badrian, my mother’s cousin”.
The world of Nazi-occupied Holland was not a normal world. Keeping your head down, not drawing attention to yourself, staying out of harm’s way. To ‘cope with ruthless tyranny, his first reaction was a perfectly normal one’.
“Yet as the Nazi screws were tightened, as the regime turned from inhumane to murderous, something inside Gerhard’s brain snapped. He went underground, developed a false identity, joined the Resistance.” Gerhard was one of many of Gardner’s extended family that died during World War II.
The anti-Nazi resistance fighter was a gentle, thoughtful man who had a successful career as a commercial photographer, he eventually reacts to ruthless tyranny by joining the Resistance as part of a team that forged identity papers to help potential Nazi victims to hide, evade capture, even escape from the occupied country. He succeeded in saving many potential victims of the Nazis after discovering a new persona, natural acting skills and wearing a Gestapo uniform.
Gardner intertwines painstaking research into a story of courage and heroism, regardless of a bleak ending.
After the author learnt about Gerhard’s exploits, he met people who had stories to tell and decided such a man deserved a book to be written about him. “Gerhard is not simply an unsung hero, he is the unsung hero of my family. This is my personal tribute to his memory.”
