Truth and absolution in the aftermath of war

I am a post-war baby boomer, the first child born after my parents arrived in Canada in 1947 from The Netherlands with five children in tow. In eighth grade at Calvin Christian School in Hamilton, Ontario, my teacher and school principal, Mr. John VanderVelde, showed us shocking photos of huge piles of bodies of Jews discovered in concentration camps after the defeat of the Third Reich. Those black and white photos are imprinted in my mind. The stories Mr. Van told about his time working for the Nazis during the occupation of The Netherlands are imprinted in my mind forever. 

My own father hid from the Nazis when they came to Dutch towns to conscript able bodied men to work for them. When I attended Hamilton District Christian Highschool, the Drama Club performed the drama based on the Diary of Anne Frank. My Dad walked out halfway. It was all too close to home and brought back very painful memories – memories that had been carefully tucked away.

I’ve read many stories of horrible genocide: Sophie’s Choice, The Baker’s Secret, Stones from the River, Sarah’s Key and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I wasn’t eager to revisit the page of history that was the Holocaust. Too disturbing. However, when I heard an interview with Mitch Albom about his novel The Little Liar on CBC Radio’s The Sunday Magazine, I was intrigued.

Characters on the page

Four main characters intersect in this parable: Two brothers (Nico and Sebastian) are rounded up in 1943 by the Nazis in the small town of Salonika (Thessaloniki) in Greece. There is the odious character, a Nazi officer, named Udo who takes great pride in efficiently transporting Jews to extermination camps and eventually becomes a Commandant who operates the gas chambers in Auschwitz. He adores the “Wolf” – the Führer,  never named by his real name in the book. The fourth character is Fanny, a close friend to both brothers, Sebastian and Nico. As the cattle train departs the station in Salonika, a “large man” punches a hole in the window to escape, but he doesn’t fit. Fanny does fit and gets tossed out. The large person advises her, “Be a good person…Tell the world that happened here.” And so, this story tells what happened in Salonika on that dreadful day in 1943 and the forty years following.

Eight-year-old Nico is described as having a “…pure heart. There was no guile anywhere.” When the Nazis enter his home, he happens to be hiding in a favourite nook and stays there while his family is forced out of the home into a warehouse with other Jews awaiting transference to the train station for deportation. When Nico emerges from his hiding place, there is no trace of his family and Udo has moved into the home. He spares Nico because he sees a valuable use for him. He recruits him to work at the train station, reassuring the Jews gathered there that they were going to Poland for jobs, and new homes. For doing this “job,” Nico would be united with his family. The first lie, and a life of lies follows.

Nico faithfully does his job – until he spots his parents and brother entering the last set of box cars heading for Auschwitz. Then the “truth” dawns on him: he has been an accomplice to the extermination of 50,000 Jews. For the next forty years, Nico, the little liar, is haunted by the enormity of what he has done. Those years are totally absorbed by making restitution for this crime. “A man, to be forgiven, will do anything.”

The fascination of lies

Sebastian, Nico’s older brother, realizes his brother has “sold him into slavery” and that betrayal feeds an equally strong obsession: revenge (complicated by jealousy of his brother), and intense hatred of Udo. 

However, there is a fifth character: Truth. Truth is the author’s voice in first person as it navigates the threads of the four narratives through the forty years. This voice does not interrupt the flow of the story. Instead, Truth badgers us with the same question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is Truth?”

Some comments by Truth:

“I must confess a confusion in this world. Why, if people so loudly value the Truth, are they so fascinated by liars?”

“When you lie about everything, you belong to nothing.”

“I was banished to earth because I was right about mankind. Humans are broken. Susceptible to sin. They were created with minds to explore, but they often choose to explore their own power. They lie. And those lies let them think they are God.”

(I read this book during the week of the Republican National Convention in mid-July. I couldn’t help but draw parallels between these words and the rhetoric in some speeches.)

 “People say many things. Some are true. Some are lies. Sometimes, if you say a lie long enough, People believe it’s the truth.”

“…all humans are inclined to hate others if they believe they are the cause of their unhappiness.  The trick is to convince them. It isn’t hard. Just find a group that feels aggrieved and point at another group as the source of their woes…Hate is an ancient melody. Blame is even older.”

The description of the horrific extermination camps scenes are like still-life paintings, locked in history, and never exploited for shock value. The novel brilliantly crafts the intertwining plots – bookended with the movement of trains that suggest not knowing where we are going. Forgeries and false identities suggest not knowing who we are when we are living lies.

Forgiving & forgiven

I am not sure about the conclusion of the story. Is the ultimate sacrifice that Nico paid for his lying a literary device (a Christ figure symbolizing Christ’s sacrificial death for all)? Or is Albom suggesting that each one of us, at some point in our lives, need to make absolution for the lies we have told? I am hoping the first is true: that Christ’s death brought absolution to all, and the freedom to live a full and rich life of being forgiven and of forgiving. 

In the CBC interview, Albom’s final words were, “Truth is precious. Forgiveness is divine. No matter what, hope can prevail.” The Little Liar powerfully testifies to all three statements.

Truth be told, this is one of that best books I have ever read. I place it in the same league as Golding’s Lord of the Flies and other books with messages that are universal and forever relevant to society regardless of time and place.

*Note: A slightly shorter version of this review was published in the November 2024 issue of Christian Courier.