#theinvisiblebridge

The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer

I have a love-hate relationship with Holocaust-related books.  I hate them because they are painful and tear at my heart and I often can’t sleep at night because of them.  I love them, because they are essential to keeping the memory of what happened burning in our minds and they are often poignant and dramatic stories in and of themselves.  I have read many, although each time I am leery about starting them.  This one I put off for a long time, but it was recommended by so many people that I had to give in and take the plunge.

This one, though, was worth the heartache.  It is a brilliantly written story of a young, Jewish man named Andras who goes from Hungary to Paris in 1937 to study architecture.  While there, he falls in love and gets swept up in the politics of war.

This great literary saga truly captures the day-to-day miseries of the Second World War.  The characters are loved and lost just as they were during the war.  The separations and sacrifices are dramatic, just as they were in real life at that time.  This book is also unique both in how it goes into detail about the earlier antisemitic forces both in France and in Hungary (prior to the war) and in its description of the war in Hungary specifically, which is often omitted in Holocaust books.

In short,  The Invisible Bridge is worth every tear you will shed.