HEART OF SILVER: Excerpt 26
"Oh yeah. The Holocaust."
So, trigger warnings:
~Patrick's company liberates a concentration camp (specifically Haunstetten)
~Did you know a good chunk of those prisoners were gay men and genderqueer people? And that instead of being freed many of them were simply re-located to different prisons across Europe? 'Cause Janine figures that out pretty quick.
~Brief mention/implication of an attempted SA on Janine. It does not go well for the guy.
This is one of those things where I'm not happy with how this chapter focuses a bit more on the Allied rescuers (Patrick and Janine) and even Klaus than the actual victims and survivors of the Holocaust. At the same time, this book isn't about the Holocaust. It's about Patrick (and Nicole, though she comes later.) Yet it has to be included in a story that has themes of white supremacy and the constant struggle of social justice vs societal evil.
I don't know, we're filing this under "good enough for a rough draft, rewrite the hell out of it later."
Comments (2)
I like the premise of this chapter. Once it's polished up it's going to be really good. But you gotta keep the bit with Janine hypnotizing (insert spoiler here). That made me laugh. I think you've added a decent amount of Holocaust accuracy that invites the reader to seek out more information when they are ready to. (I mean I know about Auschwitz from other books and general knowledge but not much about other "camps")
Not to mention the internment camps and "sanitariums" that were completely overhauled or shutdown after the veterans came back from overseas. Apparently, seeing that horror in a foreign nation isn't nearly so terrifying as seeing it in your own, as Klaus seems to have learned in this excerpt.