"Set against the historic fall of Berlin, this debut novel vibrates with emotion...a sweeping portrait of survival..." —KIRKUS REVIEWS
To Zenzi is the extraordinary story of Tobias Koertig’s odyssey through the apocalypse of Berlin in 1945. An orphaned thirteen-year-old who loves to draw, Tobias is coerced into joining the German youth army in the last desperate weeks of the war. Mistaken for a hero on the Eastern Front, he receives an Iron Cross from Hitler himself, who discovers the boy’s cartoons and appoints Tobias to sketch pictures of the ruined city.
Shuttling between the insanity of the Führer’s bunker and the chaotic streets, Tobias must contend with a scheming Martin Bormann, a deceitful deserter, the Russian onslaught, and his own compounding despair—all while falling for Zenzi, a girl of Jewish descent (a mischling) who relays secret news of death camps and convinces Tobias to make a treacherous escape to the Americans.
With thrilling risks in plotting and prose, with moments of pathos and absurdity, Shuster richly conjures a mad, tragic world.
"Set against the historic fall of Berlin, this debut novel vibrates with emotion...a sweeping portrait of survival..." —KIRKUS REVIEWS
To Zenzi is the extraordinary story of Tobias Koertig’s odyssey through the apocalypse of Berlin in 1945. An orphaned thirteen-year-old who loves to draw, Tobias is coerced into joining the German youth army in the last desperate weeks of the war. Mistaken for a hero on the Eastern Front, he receives an Iron Cross from Hitler himself, who discovers the boy’s cartoons and appoints Tobias to sketch pictures of the ruined city.
Shuttling between the insanity of the Führer’s bunker and the chaotic streets, Tobias must contend with a scheming Martin Bormann, a deceitful deserter, the Russian onslaught, and his own compounding despair—all while falling for Zenzi, a girl of Jewish descent (a mischling) who relays secret news of death camps and convinces Tobias to make a treacherous escape to the Americans.
With thrilling risks in plotting and prose, with moments of pathos and absurdity, Shuster richly conjures a mad, tragic world.
To: Chief of Police
Misty Hook Police Department
Misty Hook, NJ 08726
April 4, 2016
Please read all of this, please save any judgement until the end, for I am writing to request your help, a second time, in locating a thief, a man I once knew, a crazy man who has come back into my life from long ago, from the war, to torment me again. He has taken the only thing I cannot lose. Because your officer, Sergeant Toomis, sorry if the spelling is wrong, did not seem to believe anything I said when he investigated the robbery last week, I will repeat the details, now with a calmer head.
My name is Tobias Reisner, born Tobias Koertig in 1932 in Berlin, U.S. citizen living in Misty Hook at 39 Munro Lane, age 84 and of sound mind. I am a loyal tax payer, too, though my income is meager, only Social Security and a little cash from portraits. In the warmer months, with fading talent, I sell quick charcoal sketches of people at the nearby shore.
On March 31, I drew a cheerful lady and her daughter for $15, visited Margo’s Bakery to eat a jelly doughnut, and then came home to find my apartment in disarray. I admit that I am not a careful housekeeper, that the three small rooms never look entirely clean, but it was obvious that someone had ransacked the place. Cabinet doors were flung open, drawers lay upended on the floor, their junk scattered everywhere. The television, however, had not disappeared, and a jar of laundry coins also remained untouched. This was no ordinary thief. Then I discovered that Feigling! had been scrawled in charcoal on the closet wall, and that the rusty Maxwell House can hidden in that closet was tipped over, emptied of the only item it contained, the medal.
My heart flipped. Feigling, if you do not know, is German for coward. And the medal, I am distressed to type it, just as I was distressed to reveal it to Sergeant Toomis—the medal is the Iron Cross, awarded to German soldiers for battlefield valor. There was no doubt: Werner Fenzel had been here. Nothing could be more ridiculous. Fenzel, my old commander and antagonist, slipping into my bedroom like a phantom! Still obsessed, still unhinged, with those misaligned eyes and his ever-present fury, now almost 90, finally possessing what he always prized, what he claimed would have gone to him in the spring of 1945 if the Russians hadn’t shot off his nose.
In fact, I had done nothing heroic. A scared and scrawny boy, a poor soldier, I received the medal through a misunderstanding, which pushed Fenzel into madness, and then led to everything else—to the tyrant, to heavy burdens, to end-of-world misery, to flashes of love, to a makeshift wedding in the ruins, to the final river. That is why I never discarded this token of war, and why I need it returned. It holds all that. It forces me to remember what I would mostly rather forget.
Of course I must explain. So I will tell the whole story now, on paper, from start to finish.
Bless Fräulein Krukenberg, even though she took her ruler to my knuckles, for making me a decent typist. Forgive any errors, a few keys are sticky, I falter sometimes with English, and I do not have eraser ribbon. But all of what follows is true.
Told from the perspective of 13 year old Tobias, and set during Berlin's fall to the Allies, To Zenzi brought me along on an incredible journey through the voice of an artistic and sensitive teenage boy.
Opening with a letter from present-day Tobias (which led me to question his lucidity), he then regales the reader with the nearly unbelievable story of his past. It's 1945 and the Soviets are just outside of Berlin's city limits- air raids, bomb shelters, death and pure devastation have become normalized for Tobias and his family. Soon what little comforts he had known are taken away, and with the promise of full meals that included the ever elusive bread, he is swayed into joining the German Youth Army.
Along the way he is mistakenly labeled a German hero, even being awarded the Iron Cross from Adolf Hitler himself. Hitler takes an interest in his artistic talent and promotes him to be the "eyes above ground" by sketching the goings on throughout the city and reporting back each day. Navigating the complete chaos of the city and it's inhabitants create several challenges in his few weeks as Hitler's eyes, but during this time Tobias still manages to see his girlfriend, Zenzi. A girl of Jewish descent, Zenzi ultimately convinces him to escape to the Americans with her. This would become a journey fraught with disaster and heartbreak.
From stealing gold, to full fledged battle, even to murder, Tobias' struggle to survive this time of his life was harrowing to say this least.
When I reached the afterword of this story, I mistakenly thought that I was done, and if I'm being honest, I was left wanting more. But then I realized my mistake and goodness was I pleased! Shuster brilliantly reinvents everything that the reader believes this book to be with the afterword. It's unique and beautifully tragic, and left me wanting to read more from this debut author.
I'd recommend to anyone with an interest in historical fiction, particularly with the WWII sub-genre.