The Wyandotte news-herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1943-1963, 1945-01-11
| Notes From
Bacon Library
THE SEVENTH CROSS

occ1ucQ W Tie Oilc Ol Tie IlueSt II
have had the privilege of witnessing
for many months: THE SEVENTH
CROSS. Spencer Tracy's portrayal
OF George Heisler. was no more i'm
pressive than the excellent interpre-
tation Of his friends wallau and Paul
Roeder.
Most OF all I was impressed with
the constraint. unusual to Holly
wood. in the treatment of shock
ing and tragic situation. The note
Of quiet hope, Of faith in human
kind renewed, with which the pic
ture ended, made obvious the truth
of Clifton Fadiman's statement re-
garding the book:
THE horrors are not piled on
Indeed, they are hardly described
The tone Is quiet; suggestion con-
veys everything. There is hardly
any anger on the part Of the author
There is plenty in the reader"
OF course knew before. went
that If the picture were even hall
as good as the book I should like
THE SEVENTH CROSS very much
Ever since the novels publication,
have agreed with John Chamber
lin who called it "by all odds, the
best fiction to have come out OF
Europe's Gethsemane," and have had
an intense interest in it's author
Anna Seghers. Since thousands OF
you also saw the picture, and were
moved by it, 1 can't resist telling
you something about the author and
how the book came to be written.
When the book was first published
IN 1912, the Boston Globe called il
the most impressive account OF
Nazi Germany to date" The criti-
cal Saturday Review of Literature
used Anna Seghers' picture on its
cover and in his page and a half
review of THE SEVENTH CROSS
Robert Pick said:
"A feeling of doubt has lately been
growing as to whether contemporary
fiction writing could hope to live
up to the realities of contemporary
history. Here at last is q book
which is to give indisputable proof
that fiction writing can, and does
stand the test Nowhere does
the authors emotion get the better
OF her. Her heart is beating in the
living hearts of her characters
IN this reviewers opinion it (THE
SEVENTH CROSS, is not only the
most important contribution to
world literature made, 50 far, by
any exiled German author, but also
one Of the most remarkable books
to come out of these times of chaos
and moral danger"
Saturday when I checked through
the Book Review Digest for 1912 i
found only two other books for the
year to which so much reviewing
space had been devoted, which had
such high score on best selling
lists and such unanimously favorable
and enthusiastic criticisms. Those
two books, on par with THE SEW
ENTH CROSS were: Joseph E. Day.
les MISSION TO MOSCOW and
VAN LOOMS LIVES by Hendrix
Willem Van Loon. Close behind
them came Marjorie Kinnan Raw
lings' CROSS CREEK, while the
closest novel was John Steinbeck's
THE MOON IS DOWN. Such is
the quality Of Anna Seghers' sin
tensely engrossing and powerfully
moving novel"
And what Of Anna Seghers2 Here
is her story in brief, tand I hope
some Of you will be stimulated to
read it more completely in Current
Biography and elsewhere):
In Nazi Germany there was only
one thing worse than a Jew or a
revolutionary writer, and that was a
Jewish revolutionary writer. Netty
Reiling Gamma Seghers is a pseu-
donym adopted early in her writing
caree) was both. Born, like George
Heisler, in the old German city of
Mainz, Netty. an only child, inherit
ed q deep-rooted fondness for art,
for all culture, and a passion for
freedom from her father who was
a "connoisseur of the arts and owned
a prosperous antique shop in one of
the fashionable streets in the city"
While at the University of Heidel-
berg. two things of Importance hap
pened to Netty. She met her future
husband, Ladislaus Radvanyi, a Hun
garian sociologist and she began her
career as Anna Seghers, starting
the first Of her dynamic novels Cab
eled by the Nazis revolutionary.
When Hitler came into power in
1888, Anna Seghers, her husband,
and two small children, fled to Paris
with other anti-Nazis refugees. At
ter September, 1899, they lived in
constant fear of extradition to Ger
many. When the Munich minded
French government rounded up all
suspects, Frau Seghers' husband
was among them and he was clap
ped into the notorious lie Vernet
concentration camp described by Ar
thur Koestler in his SCUM OF
THE EARTH (194D."
When the Nazis marched on Paris,
Anna Seghers, whose desperate at
tempt to escape the city with her
children failed, spent the weeks i'm
mediately following in underground
quarters. It was at this period in
her life that Anna Seghers finished