Tomorrow by Elisabeth Russell Taylor, 1991,e-edition 2018, Daunt Books, London, ISBN 978-1-911547-13-6
It is a remarkable book.
It is about a Jewish survivor of the holocaust. She was a young lady about to marry her sweetheart when Nazis reach her and her family. She is a member of a highly cultured, rich family which identifies with German culture rather than Jewish one. The family spends summer holidays on a small island near Denmark every year. In 1939, the rest of the family goes ahead to Europe while she and Daniel, her beau stay back on the island to complete their write-up with photographs of the island which they want to submit for publication. They are isolated and feel that the current trouble would not reach them. They are in lover's cocoon.
Their family sends SOS and asks them to return immediately. They do so and are caught. She is expecting. The lady loses her lover and family. She is sent to a brothel and a Nazi officer bangs her seven month old son against a wall "to teach you Jews a lesson". She survives, comes to London and spends her days as a maid servant with a titled family. However, each year she spends one week at the Danish island.
She keeps to herself continuously trying to come to terms with what has happened.
A colonel and his wife who has a mental age of a child are other regular visitors to the hotel where she stays. The colonel watches her and recognizes her powerful, beautiful mind. He pursues her and she rebuffs him.
She has given up hope and yet she keeps these annual visits because that was the pact with Daniel.
On the last day of her trip, there is a musical programme by a musician from South America. He has come with his young, beautiful wife. He is of course, Daniel. The protagonist listens to him and afterwards kills herself.
Old-timed style of writing. Details are presented slowly and so the beginning is boring but there is enough to make the reader persevere. Then the story proceeds quickly and ends even more quickly, leaving the reader disturbed.
What atrocities must have taken place during World War II!
