As a child who grew up during the apartheid regime in South Africa in the ’60s and ’70s, I was thoroughly brainwashed by what I was taught at school and told at home. As a member of the Voortrekkers (an Afrikaner youth organisation something like America’s Scouts) we were conditioned to fear the extinction of the Afrikaner tribe, the onslaught of the ‘Swart Gevaar’ and the dangers of communism lurking behind every bush.
Needless to say, reading Louise Fine’s debut novel, People Like US, was a stomach wrenching experience for me as I was forced to relive my own childhood and the insidious – and often brutal – influence of those in authority to instil ideas of a ‘chosen tribe’ that must be preserved and protected at all cost. It was perhaps not as severe as the Nazi propaganda campaigns, but scarily similar to what the youth was subjected to in Germany in the mid and late 1930s, especially in the Hitler Youth organisation.
People Like Us offers the well-worn narrative from the perspective of a young German girl and daughter of an SS officer during the rise of Nazism. Hitler undoubtedly oozed charisma and had an uncanny ability to influence people – the youth in particular. They set Hitler first, before everything and everyone, including their own parents. They swore life-long allegiance to their führer and his cause and, just like we promised to ‘live or die for South Africa’, they devoted their lives to Hitler.
If anything, this book helped me to understand, in some way, the power of the Nazi machine and its almost cultic approach in winning over, convincing and forcing people to buy into the Nazi propaganda which, in many instances, led to heart-breaking dilemmas that they had to face in terms of old friendships and loved ones.
When Hetty falls in love with her childhood friend, a Jew, her eyes open to a different perspective and she starts seeing through the lies, and gradually begins to comprehend the grave inhumanity driven by Aryan fanaticism. She is forced to navigate her love for a Jewish boy, her new insight and her changing beliefs in a world fraught with rising tensions of anti-Semitism, growing suspicions and dangers, even in her own household.
It’s simply a beautifully crafted and powerful novel, and while the plot may not be the most original, it provides enough suspense to keep one turning the pages. I read this in nearly one sitting and found myself deeply touched – and upset – by the story that is broadly based on the history of the writer’s own Jewish family who made their escape out of Leipzig in the late 1930s.
Perhaps the impact of People Like Us, published in 2020 amid the world’s current divided political landscape, is a book that, although historical, clearly points out how easily even civilised and educated people can be drawn into an ideology and be manipulated to follow it blindly, no matter how despicable. It is, in fact, rather scary. Read it and let me know what you thought.
