A Jewish mother from Berlin
Subtitle: a novel ; Susanna : a novella
By: Gertrud Kolmar ; translated from the German by Brigitte M. Goldstein.
Contributors: Goldstein, Brigitte.; Kolmar, Gertrud, 1894-1943?
Series: Modern German voices series
Publisher: Holmes & Meier
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 202
Subjects: Kolmar, Gertrud, 1894-1943? -- Translations into English.; Jewish women -- Fiction.
Other titles: Jewish mother from Berlin ; Susanna; Susanna.
Description: In A Jewish Mother from Berlin, Martha Jadassohn's seemingly conventional life plunges into chaos after a brutal attack on her only child. As Martha assumes the self-imposed mission of combing Berlin for the man who raped five-year-old Ursa, she encounters Berlin's staid and seamy sides - a world peopled with working-class weekend gardeners, middle-class cultural snobs, transvestites, a former Spanish dancer turned hostess with a secret, and a Jewish lawyer who clings rigidly to the rule of law.

During her harrowing quest, Martha becomes obsessed with a handsome, shallow "Aryan" type in a relationship that intensifies her solitude and alienation. Kolmar peels away the layers of Martha's outward restraint to bare the soul of a woman slowly shattered by a callous society in which Jews are outcasts and women preyed upon.

Another heroine on a quest for love and self-expression propels the lyrical novella Susanna, a finely wrought psychological portrait of an outsider. The ethereally beautiful Susanna sets out on a tragic search for her lost lover, only to find herself floundering in a world where everyone's perceptions clash with her own.