Half Notes From Berlin
It is spring 1933 in Berlin. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis have just risen to power. Changes are coming. Bad ones. Particularly for the family of 15-year-old Hans Meyer, his mother and father. Particularly for Hans, who does not know he is part Jewish.
Hans’s mother’s family converted to Christianity before he was born. His mother married an Aryan, and Hans was raised to believe that he is Christian. He is a popular boy who sings in a Berlin choir with Marie, who harbors a secret crush on him, but Hans is falling in love with a brave Jewish student named Rebecca at a time when Nazi laws begin to crack down on Jewish freedoms and when being perceived as Jewish, part Jewish, or just a friend to a Jew is becoming dangerous.
In many ways, Half Notes is like Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers battling against all odds. How does Hans handle the violent abrupt changes he is experiencing all around him? How does he cope with the fear that he will be considered an outcast if his secret ancestry is discovered by his teachers and friends?
Centered as it is around teenagers, Half Notes reads as a YA novel. It would be more compelling if we didn’t know from the outset what was to befall Hans and the members of his family. There are few surprises except for how the relationship between Hans and Rebecca will play out. And that, for me, fizzled out. The novel reads too much like a diary and not enough like a drama. Focusing on Hans, Rebecca, and a few other characters would have created more tension. Instead, Half Notes read more like a story of teen angst, albeit in a terrible time, rather than the nightmare that being a Jew in those days really was.
