The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History by Thomas Harding is the story of Harding's attempt to reclaim a family home in Germany lost during the Holocaust. Along with the house itself, Harding also recovers a century of history in the lives of five families who lived in the house through the First World War, the collapse of Imperial Germany, The Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, communism, the physical and political division of the Berlin Wall, and reunification.
Harding first visited his family's house by Gross Glienicke Lake in the suburbs of Berlin in 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He traveled there with his grandmother Elsie, who had loved the home built by her father, Alfred Alexander, Harding's great-grandfather, as "a soul place." The family lost the house when they fled Germany and Nazi persecution of Jewish people in the 1930s. Harding resolved to return to learn more about the house and its history, and in 2013 arrived to discover that the house was soon to be demolished. His efforts to preserve this modest house by the lake result in "the story of a building that was loved and lost by five families. A story of the everyday moments that make a house a home . . . It is also the story of Germany over a turbulent century. . . . Above all, it is a story of survival, one that has been pieced together from archival material and building plans, recently declassified documents, letters, diaries, photographs, and conversations with historians, architects, botanists, police chiefs and politicians, villagers, neighbours and, most importantly, its occupants." Ultimately, due to Harding's efforts, the house has been saved, and readers can follow its future at
www.AlexanderHaus.org, the website for the nonprofit that will transform the property into a Centre for Education and Reconciliation.
What do you think? Do you live in an old house? Do you know about--or perhaps wonder about--its history? Does your family have a home, "a soul place," that is central to its history and identity? Harding uses a place, his family's house at Gross Glienicke Lake, to anchor a larger story about Germany over the last century of its history. What unique perspective on this complicated history does this focus on a single house provide? Of the many people who lived on the property and in the lake house, whose story was most interesting to you? Why? After returning to visit the house in 2013 and learning that the house is slated for demolition, Harding wonders not only if the house can be saved, but whether or not it should be saved. Is there value in preserving a modest structure like the Alexanders' house by the lake? How do you explain Harding's family's resistance to his desire to reclaim and restore the house? How do you think acknowledgement and reparation should be made to Jewish families who lost property and loved ones during the Holocaust? In his Epilogue, Harding says that "Whatever the outcome,
The House by the Lake is a story of hope. It demonstrates that while we humans can experience terrible suffering, in time we are indeed able to exercise our capacity for healing. And if we manage that, a century of pain, joy, and dramatic change will have had a positive outcome. One thing is clear: a new chapter in the story has just begun. It will be fascinating to see what the next hundred years will bring." Are you as hopeful as Harding about the future?
We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, September 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, September 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.
