Informationen zum Autor Vesper Stamper Klappentext A riveting story about the rivalry between two brothers living on opposite sides of the Berlin wall during its construction in the 1960s, and how their complicated legacy and dreams of greatness will determine their ultimate fate. A city divided. A family fractured. Two brothers caught between past and present. Berlin, 1961. Rudi Möser-Fleischmann is an aspiring photographer with dreams of greatness, but he can't hold a candle to his talented, charismatic twin brother Peter, an ambitious actor. With the sudden divorce of their parents, the brothers find themselves living in different sectors of a divided Berlin; the postwar partition strangely mirroring their broken family. But one night, as the city sleeps, the Berlin Wall is hurriedly built, dividing society further, and Rudi and Peter are forced to choose between playing by the rules and taking their dreams underground. That is, until the truth about their family history and the growing cracks in their relationship threaten to split them apart for good. From National Book Award-nominated, critically acclaimed author-illustrator Vesper Stamper comes a stark look at how resentment and denial can strain the bonds of brotherhood to the breaking point. Leseprobe April 1945 Stunde Null When he thought about it years later, it was the book in the piano bench that had tipped him off. Herr Richter was in the kitchen making a cup of tea while Rudolf waited in the parlor for his viola lesson, bored out of his skull. In the low golden light, the room so flowery, so pink, with its armchairs bedecked in cabbage roses, the ticking clock sent him into an afternoon drowse. Rudolf hated the viola. It had none of the panache of the violin, none of the glitter of the piano, which was his first instrument. He had only convinced his parents to let him take these lessons so he could get closer to Gerta. Today she wasn't even home, out with Frau Buchner on some errand. So Rudolf, after chewing his nails to nubs, picking at the callus on his left index finger and rosining his bow a third time, lifted the hinged lid of the piano bench and rifled through to see if there was anything interesting. And there it was. Under the Christmas carols and Volkslieder, a book written in those funny letters he knew only Jews could read, and underneath the title, the translation: Yiddish Ballads. Rudolf chalked it up to the collection of an eccentric musical couple; people had already begun accumulating artifacts for the time when those people would be extinct. Even though he was given his Hitler Jugend uniform and told to be on the lookout for hidden Jews, it still did not click in Rudolf's mind. But when, on another afternoon several weeks later, Herr Richter opened the cabinet to put more cigarettes into his brass pocket case, Rudolf spotted a small silver cup not much bigger than a schnapps glass and thought he made out the distinctive shape of a six-pointed star incised on its side. Then he knew. It had to be true: Gerta Richter was Jewish. All this time, he had been fantasizing not about a girl, but about a Jew. It wouldn't have mattered before, in the days prior to the Nuremberg Laws. But it did now. The thought simultaneously repulsed him--mainly because he had been told it should repulse him--and excited him. He had something to report at the next HJ meeting. It pained him, too, because he knew he would have to renounce Gerta. Purge himself of her. He would have to harden his heart and train himself to hate her. Because he knew he would have to turn Gerta in. It was the Right Thing to do. That is how Rudolf found himself standing in the midnight dark, watching from the edge of the crowd, emotionless, as the girl he had been in love with since her first day in the children's choir was herded by guns and...

Autorentext

Vesper Stamper

Klappentext

A riveting story about the rivalry between two brothers living on opposite sides of the Berlin wall during its construction in the 1960s, and how their complicated legacy and dreams of greatness will determine their ultimate fate.

A city divided. A family fractured. Two brothers caught between past and present.

Berlin, 1961. Rudi Möser-Fleischmann is an aspiring photographer with dreams of greatness, but he can't hold a candle to his talented, charismatic twin brother Peter, an ambitious actor. With the sudden divorce of their parents, the brothers find themselves living in different sectors of a divided Berlin; the postwar partition strangely mirroring their broken family. But one night, as the city sleeps, the Berlin Wall is hurriedly built, dividing society further, and Rudi and Peter are forced to choose between playing by the rules and taking their dreams underground. That is, until the truth about their family history and the growing cracks in their relationship threaten to split them apart for good.
 
From National Book Award-nominated, critically acclaimed author-illustrator Vesper Stamper comes a stark look at how resentment and denial can strain the bonds of brotherhood to the breaking point.

Leseprobe
April 1945

Stunde Null

When he thought about it years later, it was the book in the piano bench that had tipped him off.

Herr Richter was in the kitchen making a cup of tea while Rudolf waited in the parlor for his viola lesson, bored out of his skull. In the low golden light, the room so flowery, so pink, with its armchairs bedecked in cabbage roses, the ticking clock sent him into an afternoon drowse. Rudolf hated the viola. It had none of the panache of the violin, none of the glitter of the piano, which was his first instrument. He had only convinced his parents to let him take these lessons so he could get closer to Gerta.

Today she wasn’t even home, out with Frau Buchner on some errand. So Rudolf, after chewing his nails to nubs, picking at the callus on his left index finger and rosining his bow a third time, lifted the hinged lid of the piano bench and rifled through to see if there was anything interesting.

And there it was. Under the Christmas carols and Volkslieder, a book written in those funny letters he knew only Jews could read, and underneath the title, the translation: Yiddish Ballads.

Rudolf chalked it up to the collection of an eccentric musical couple; people had already begun accumulating artifacts for the time when those people would be extinct. Even though he was given his Hitler Jugend uniform and told to be on the lookout for hidden Jews, it still did not click in Rudolf’s mind.

But when, on another afternoon several weeks later, Herr Richter opened the cabinet to put more cigarettes into his brass pocket case, Rudolf spotted a small silver cup not much bigger than a schnapps glass and thought he made out the distinctive shape of a six-pointed star incised on its side. Then he knew.

It had to be true: Gerta Richter was Jewish. All this time, he had been fantasizing not about a girl, but about a Jew. It wouldn’t have mattered before, in the days prior to the Nuremberg Laws. But it did now. The thought simultaneously repulsed him--mainly because he had been told it should repulse him--and excited him. He had something to report at the next HJ meeting. It pained him, too, because he knew he would have to renounce Gerta. Purge himself of her. He would have to harden his heart and train himself to hate her.

Because he knew he would have to turn Gerta in. It was the Right Thing to do.

That is how Rudolf found himself standing in the midnight dark, watching from the edge of the crowd, emotionless, as the girl he had been in love with since her first day in the children’s choir was herded by guns and dogs onto a train with the rest of the filthy Jews of Wurzburg.

That is how, the next day, he was able to march mechanically up the stairs of Gerta’s…