Book Report
Title
Reunion
Author
Fred Uhlman
Year of birth
19th of January
1901
Year of death
11th of April
1985
Biographical data
Fred Uhlman was born in Stuttgart into a middle-class Jewish family. He
studied at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich and Tübingen. In 1923, he
graduated with a degree in Law followed by a Doctorate in Civil and Canon
law.
Source:
Wikipedia
The book itself
Title
Reunion
Year of first publication
1986
Explanation of the title
Reunion:
I personally think that when Hans receives a letter at the end of the book
Hans gets a letter where all the names are listed. The moment that he
reads all the names, it must be that he remembers all the names and that
they are reunited in Hans’ head for a moment, maybe it sounds a little
weird but that are the thoughts I had when I finished reading the book
and thinking about the title.
Genre
World War II novel.
Short description of the main character(s)
Hans Schwarz:
A Jewish boy who lives in Stuttgart and attends the Gymnasium in Stuttgart. He
has no friends and lives a sad life
Konradin von Hohenfels:
A Christian boy who moved to Stuttgart at the beginning of the book. He is the
son of a very rich and high family: “The Hohenfels”.
Plot
The story is about a boy named Hans Schwarz who lived in Germany around
1932. He lived a boring life until a new student came into his class. His name
was Konradin von Hohenfels. He was the son of a very rich family. After a few
days they find out that they have a few things in common and they start to meet
each other after school.
One day Hans decided to ask Konradin to come over to his home. After spending
a few days, Konradin invited Hans to his home. Hans didn’t expect this and was
scared for his parents, but they weren’t at home. Every time they went to his
house his parents were gone, and Hans thought Konradin was ashamed of
introducing Hans to his parents. Later he learned his parents were Nazi’s. Hitler
was getting more power and Jews were getting bullied. His father decided to
send him to America and that was the end for Hans and Konradin. He had a last
letter from him, the letter said that Konradin believed in Hitler, because he was
the only one who could help Germany to get up again. The book continued at 30
years later. Hans then lived in America as a lawyer with a wife and children. He
had completely forgotten about his time in Germany until he was asked to give
money for a war memorial for his old classmates who had died in the war. At first
he avoided the letter H because he didn’t wanted to know what happened to
Konradin but then he decided to take a look anyway. He was schocked when he
read the following:
‘Von Hohenfels, Konradin, implicated in the plot to kill Hitler. Executed.’
Narrative structure: chronology, flashbacks; point of view; time span
The story is told chronologically, there were no flashbacks. At the last 10 pages
the story skips 30 years and continues when Hans gets a letter to donate money
for a war memorial for his old classmates in Germany. The first 60 pages are in
the last years of the forties. It’s written in the first-person perspective. (I, me)
Theme
Friendship (between Hans and Konradin).
Betrayal (Konradin betrays Hans when he tells him that he actually is for Hitler)
Opinion
The book is very well written, at the beginning I found it boring but when I kept
reading it became fun to read. It was not a cliché story, it was unique and
exciting. I would like to read many of these books in the future because they are
very fun to read.
Teacher’s comment and assignment