The Requisitions
September 1939 in the Polish city of Łódź, and the inhabitants await the arrival of the invading German army and all the horrors that will accompany their baleful presence. Professor Viktor Bauman, a philologist, and Elsa Dietrich, a forcibly recruited secretary to the German occupation, are the main characters – both escaping from their pasts in the West and who find themselves in constant danger in the embattled city.
The writer has an engaging literary approach, with interpolations and context-setting from the conversational and knowledgeable narrator/writer. As befits a specialist in the German-inflicted horrors of the Second World War, Lopez-Barrantes provides a sound and comprehensive historical context. Even though it is a narrative which has been told many times, such are the nature and extent of the horrors that the reader cannot fail to be shocked and distressed afresh at the details and the knowledge that such events and behaviour did happen. It is as if the reader is in the midst of some Quentin Tarantino film in which the German characters behave with nightmare evil perverseness. For a small press publisher, this is excellent fiction, well-written and executed. Philosophical questions such as the nature of guilt, blame and responsibility are discussed with intelligence and awareness. The ending seemed a little sudden and unexpected, leaving quite a few issues contingent – but that, of course, is commensurate with the very nature of life that the author delineates in this profound and disturbing work of fiction.
