A Berlin policeman makes a potentially life-or-death decision.
Why?
What made the difference?
The Decision
A Novel of Germany
by Karen A. Wyle
Genre: Historical WWII Fiction
A Life of Contradictions, and A Moment of Truth
It
is autumn of 1938, in Hitler’s Germany, in the capital city of
Berlin, perhaps a month before the devastating anti-Jewish violence
of Kristallnacht. Three Jewish boys have received new bicycles —
because their family has, with difficulty, arranged to leave Germany,
and they will not be allowed to take much cash with them. Two of the
boys are experienced bicyclists, but the youngest is less so. On a
downtown street, the latter’s lack of skill causes an accident. And
the traffic policeman on the scene wears, just visible under his
uniform, the brown shirt of a member of Hitler's storm
troopers.
What did the policeman do? The answer is known,
because the preceding paragraph describes an actual event. But why
did the policeman make the choice he did? What life did he live that
led him to make it? And what happened to him, while the boys and
their family escaped, lived, and thrived? This novel imagines
possible answers to these questions. In doing so, it takes the reader
into the heart of the experience of wartime, and the repercussions of
such conflict for years thereafter.
"The
Decision both stands out from the crowd as an important
examination of how attitudes are changed and friendships buffeted by
clashing ideologies, and lends [itself] to classroom or reading group
discussion about all kinds of subplots intrinsic to a complete
understanding of the Jewish and German experience." Midwest
Book Review
Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but eventually settled in Bloomington, Indiana. She now considers herself a Hoosier. She is an appellate attorney, photographer, and mother of two.
Wyle's thoughtful and compassionate fiction includes SF, historical romance, historical fiction and fantasy. She has also collaborated with several wonderful illustrators to produce picture books. Relying on her legal background, she has written one nonfiction resource, explaining American law to authors, law students, and anyone else interested in better understanding the legal landscape. Wyle's voice is the product of a lifetime spent reading both literary and genre fiction. Her personal history has led her to focus on often-intertwined themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and the persistence of unfinished business.
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