Jurek Becker est d’origine juive et polonaise, il a vécu pendant la seconde guerre mondiale dans un ghetto juif avant d’être déporté dans des camps de concentration. Et pourtant, sur toutes les photos que j’ai pu voir de Jurek Becker, il rit aux éclats. Et son livre est un peu à l’image de ce paradoxe apparent. Jakob Heym, qui tente de survivre dans le ghetto tenu par les Allemands, apprend dans des circonstances un peu étranges que l’armée soviétique n’est pas loin. C’est l’espoir qui renaît tout un coup et Jakob ne peut pas garder cette nouvelle pour lui. Mais ne voulant pas dire comment il a appris la nouvelle, il ment et s’invente un poste de radio (pourtant interdit par les nazis).
Mais alors, Jakob, le terne, l’effacé, qui ne pense qu’à tenter de faire profil bas et de survivre, se retrouve prisonnier de son propre mensonge. Il comprend qu’il a commencé à donner de l’espoir et qu’il ne peut donc pas s’arrêter en chemin, ce serait pire que tout. Mais Jakob n’a pas de poste de radio, alors il ne peut qu’inventer les nouvelles suivantes, inventer l’espoir.
Et en plus de cette histoire très originale et sensible sur la notion d’espoir, sur ce que l’espoir fait à nos vies, sur la façon d’entretenir cet espoir, Jurek Becker nous donne à lire une prose d’une incroyable délicatesse. Il observe ses personnages dans leurs moindres réactions, leurs moindres froncements de sourcils ou pincements de nez, nous expliquant ce que signifie chacun de ces petits plissements de paupière, ce qu’il aurait fallu faire s’il n’avait pas été là, ce qu’on est obligé de faire maintenant qu’on l’a vu…
Avec cette histoire un peu improbable et avec cette attention extrême, cette tendresse, pour les personnages, Jurek Becker nous livre un roman d’une très grande originalité (je crois ne jamais avoir rien lu qui s’en rapproche en tout cas), et dans lequel je me suis plongé avec un plaisir auquel je ne m’étais pas attendu.
Le livre n’est pas gai, puisque l’Histoire, la vraie, la grande, celle avec une majuscule, est déjà passée par là et l’on sait qu’aucun ghetto n’a été libéré par quelque armée que ce soit. Le ghetto de Jurek Becker ne fait pas exception, celui de Jakob Heym non plus. Et pourtant c’est un livre qui respire la vie, ce qui est une façon originale, déroutante au début, de traiter le sujet de la seconde guerre mondiale et de l’holocauste. Et pourtant, c’est peut-être cela que veut dire le rire de Jurek Becker : après toutes ces horreurs, et parce qu’elles n’ont pas tout anéanti, la seule option qui reste pour vivre, c’est l’espoir. Et tant pis si l’espoir repose sur un mensonge, ce qui compte c’est l’espoir, pas qu’il se réalise. Alors Jakob le menteur est en fait, à sa façon bien particulière, un résistant, un homme qui a aidé les siens aux heures les plus sombres. Qu’importe qu’il survive ou non, que ceux qu’il a aidés survivent ou non. Leur vie a été faite d’espoir et elle a été peut-être pas plus belle, mais plus supportable pour cela.
Un magnifique roman, peu connu, peu lu si j’en crois les sites de lecture français, mais un roman qui mérite d’être plus largement diffusé, tant il mélange le plus sombre de l’humanité et le plus lumineux. Un roman qui m’a marquée, et je sais que je garderai longtemps un Jakob dans le coin de ma tête, un Jakob menteur peut-être, mais un Jakob qui connaît la valeur de l’espoir.

A dark comedy, set in the ghetto of an unnamed Polish city towards the end of World War II, and obviously drawing on Becker's own childhood experience of the Łódź Ghetto. Jakob Heym, an undistinguished man who has spent the last twenty years in a snack-bar serving up potato pancakes in winter and ice-cream in summer, accidentally overhears a news report about the progress of the Red Army towards Poland. He can't keep this to himself in the information-starved ghetto community, but he equally can't admit to the humiliating circumstances in which he overheard it, so on the spur of the moment he is inspired to tell his friend Kowalski, in the strictest confidence, that the has a secret radio receiver. Naturally, the news is all around the ghetto in a matter of hours, people are soon pestering him for more news, and he finds himself gradually led from one lie to another.

We hear a lot about "the information war" these days: that's exactly what's going on here, and what was going on in the DDR at the time Becker wrote the book: the news that Jakob is able to pass on, sketchy and mostly false though it was, gave the Jews in the ghetto the glimmer of hope that help was on its way, which they needed to carry on living and fighting back at least within themselves, even if there was no real way they could resist the Germans.

But this is also a moving and often funny book about human beings and the way they act under pressure. Little acts of bravery, irrational bits of pettiness and generosity, and especially the wonderful description of the long friendship between Jakob and his neighbour Kowalski, who aren't quite sure any more after several decades whether they love or hate each other. ( )

This novel is written in a discursive, colloquial style. As in Conrad’s Lord Jim, a garrulous storyteller — perhaps he sits at a table in a tavern — just talks. If you’ve ever tried to write like that, you know what an achievement Becker’s result is.
The title figure is Jakob Heym. One evening, through a comic but frightening misadventure, he hears a bit of news that was only meant for German ears. The next day he uses what he heard to save a fellow ghetto-dweller from a foolhardy act that would have cost him his life. When the fellow doesn’t believe him, Jakob improvises. He knows, he says, because he has a radio — something he and the other Jews are strictly forbidden to own.
The news is about a battle just a hundred miles or so from their town. That means that the Eastern front is moving west. It’s no wonder that his companion doesn’t keep the news to himself. Before long, it has been whispered throughout the ghetto. People Jakob hadn’t previously known sidle up to him, hungry for the next tidbit of information. A young couple begins an affair, a middling old actor draws up a list of twenty roles he’d be suited for, a barber dreams of renovating his shop, or perhaps even changing to another business. There are no more suicides. As one of the characters explains it, “yesterday there was no tomorrow.”
This creates a problem for Jakob. The first bit of news was based on a real radio report. But now he has to invent. But, as he laments, he is no Sholem Aleichem. Nevertheless, he does his best. Finally, when he’s had enough, he entrusts the truth to his best friend, Kowalski. The next morning, Kowalski hangs himself.
Becker creates a moral dilemma — one faced by the original patriarch Jacob in Genesis: when is a lie better than the truth? But he doesn’t moralize. Nor is there a happy end. Yes, the Russians truly are drawing closer. But for the inhabitants of this ghetto in an unnamed Polish city, this means not liberation but hasty deportation to the ovens. Jakob’s lie doesn’t save them from death, but it does give them life in the meantime.
In the course of telling the story of Jakob, Becker creates vivid portraits of many others: Kowalski, Mischa and his fiancée Rosa, Rosa’s father, the mediocre actor, renowned heart specialist Dr. Kirschbaum, the pious Hershel, who refuses to cut his payotim and hides them under a fur hat that causes him to sweat profusely as he works. Perhaps the most poignant is Lina, the little girl overlooked when her family is deported, taken in and hidden by Jakob.
The book is masterfully written. By turns comic and tragic, it is above all a deeply humane book. ( )

Memoria e invenzione, una dolorosa ironia e una tensione narrativa sempre raffrenata, mai eccessiva, danno un respiro ampio al primo romanzo di Becker, il quale coglie nella vicenda del commerciante polacco Jakob un paradosso esistenziale che trascende ogni contingenza storica e può rinnovarsi sempre e ovunque. (fonte: Google Books)

Jacob the Liar by Jurek Becker
★★★★
Jacob the Liar is the story of life in a Nazi-occupied Jewish ghetto. Protagonist Jacob Heym is sent to the military office and overhears a radio broadcast about a nearby Russian victory. He finds himself in a predicament when he decides to share the good news but lies to cover up where he heard the news by claiming he owns a radio. The news instills hope and curbs the stream of suicides in the ghetto. The subsequent plot centers around Jacob’s struggles to maintain the lie about his radio in an effort to maintain a glimmer of hope in the lives of those surrounding him.

This is a powerful story. The emotional restraint (e.g., the matter of fact way of describing beatings, daily hardships, and death) of the narrator makes the story hit you that much harder.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS:
Hope is a dangerous thing in this story. On the one hand Jacob’s stories give his community a sense of purpose and meaning to continue fighting for survival, yet on the other hand the reader is told up front that the conclusion likely will not be one that deserves hope. What happens to Kowalski when he learns the truth is gut wrenching.
END OF POSSIBLE SPOILERS

I ended up really liking this book despite thinking about halfway through that it was just “okay.” It grew on me throughout the book. It was heartbreaking at times, and uplifting at other times. There are many good WWII books but I found it interesting that the book focused on life in the ghetto rather than life in concentration camps – making the book unique in its own way. I also liked the way the book makes you feel conflicted about ethics of Jacob’s behavior. I found myself thinking a lot about whether the instillation of hope is always a good thing.
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