A Sequel That Reframes the Past
I recently read All the Broken Places by John Boyne, published many years after his more known book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas that in 2008 was made into a critically acclaimed yet conflicted movie. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, both as a book and a movie, was experienced by many as too fable-like for the seriousness of the subject matter—The Holocaust.
The sequel shifts focus from the boy Bruno to his older sister, Gretel Fernsby, now a 91-year-old woman living in modern-day London. Having spent her entire life trying to escape the dark shadow of her past and the horrific legacy of her father—the Nazi commandant of a concentration camp—Gretel is forced to confront her deeply repressed guilt, grief, and complicity when a new family with a young boy moves into the apartment downstairs. The story alternates between her traumatic post-war flight from Poland to France, then Australia to England, and her life decades later, confronting her personal responsibility alongside the greater consequences of Germany’s WWII atrocities.
The Power of Old Age
The reason I am writing about All the Broken Places is that old age itself provides the very context for Gretel’s story to unfold with clarity and meaning within the context of this huge world event. Her advanced age seems to give her the space and courage needed to finally come to terms with her past.
Old age is often portrayed in books and movies as an unwelcome and unavoidably depressing ending to life’s joys and struggles. Gretel’s old age surprisingly brings a different kind of inner strength that empowers her to acknowledge and take responsibility for her actions and choices in a time when many in power were never held accountable. While she is not your typical hero, she makes heroic attempts to garner justice on a personal level—while living with a kind of freedom that her old age offers her to both confront and comfort herself.
A Story Waiting for the Screen
The story of social justice and war that Boyne develops cannot exist without the framework of Gretel’s age. Her story has not yet become a movie, but I would definitely buy a movie ticket to see it; Meryl Streep would be perfect.
The Unmade Movies of Our Elders
Working with elders during their varied experiences with old age, I have been witness to many an unmade movie. During our first year in service of frail elders, in 2012, we cared for two residents who shared a double suite. One was a survivor of WWII who lost her brother, never to be found when he worked for the underground resistance in Germany. Her roommate, by contrast, lived with the damage inflicted from years of brainwashing at the hands of Hitler’s youth program for girls—taken from her childhood home where she lived on a multigenerational farm. Both experienced nightmares and sleep disturbances, symptoms of PTSD. Neither knew of the other’s history but were able to communicate with one another in German, a comfort in using their native language. I was in awe of their friendship and the history they shared.
Stories Worth Remembering
Remembering the many stories that I have been honored to hear these past 15 years leaves me with newfound respect for the unmade movies of the extraordinary lives our residents have lived.
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