As Greece continues to battle financial problems, a timely new book reminds the world of the ordeal that Greece went through under German occupation during World War Two. MY FATHER HAD THIS LUGER... A True Story of Hitler's Greece is a gripping “non-fiction novel” that reads like a fast-paced thriller. But it’s all historical fact and it presents a deeply affecting picture of what happened in Greece after the Fuhrer dispatched his army and air force to seize the country.
Anyone who really doubts that Greece’s 21st-century economic worries have roots in WWII will find a rude awakening in this book. It begins by palpably evoking the calmness of life in Greece before the war, which despite a troubled political history was peaceful compared to what followed. It then records, with the visual impact of a movie, the painful ways in which the German jackboot came down on Greek civilians, leaving devastation in its wake. These swiftly-moving pages plunge you into the civilian side of war, but the soldiers are all around. It's a story that makes it easy to see how Greece’s economy was shattered, with effects that influenced the whole course of the country’s postwar life.
This is a mesmerizing read. One of the book’s strengths is that it manages to present a complex, thought-provoking history lesson without ever being either dull or depressing, as war books often are. The real message in this deftly told, character-driven tale is that no matter how tough things get, people can pull through as long as they’re willing to take advantage of universal resources like family, community and basic human decency. The book has an impressive emotional range, lulling you with cosy scenes of security one minute, scaring you silly the next, and then startling you with gee-whiz facts that you never knew about the war. A lot of the story is humorous. The central character is a little boy who gets into scrapes and takes the mind-boggling risks that all little boys do, regardless of tanks, enemy aircraft and a German encampment right across the road from his house. The child’s-eye perspective also enables the book to describe the adults – soldiers and civilians alike – with the truthfulness and detachment that only children possess.
MY FATHER HAD THIS LUGER... tells the story of Evangelos Louizos, a Greek-born British resident who taught history and English before he retired. It’s aimed at young adults who know very little about the war as well as at their elders who’ve either read a lot about the war or can even remember it. It succeeds in addressing its several audiences with equal ease and authority largely because of its tight storytelling and its crisp, plain language, devoid of frills.
It’s an admirable first book in the SWORD OF ZEUS series about Greece and World War II. The series is chaired by Aris Melissaratos, senior advisor to the president of Johns Hopkins University, with the help of a distinguished panel of historical and military experts. The series is produced for Montagu House Publishers under the creative direction of writer N.J. Slabbert.
More details at
www.montagupublishing.com/bookshelf#!__bookshelf
or www.theswordofzeus.info
