Remote Sympathy
Catherine Chidgey"... powerful... Chidgey sets the perspectives of Weber and the Hahns in counterpoint, giving a chilling intimacy to the daily routines inside the Hahn household and at the inmates’ nearby barracks." - Anne Garvey, The Jewish Chronicle
Being appointed administrator of the Buchenwald work camp is a major advancement for SS Sturmbannführer Dietrich Hahn. But as the prison population begins to rise, his job becomes ever more consuming. His wife, Frau Greta Hahn, finds their new home even lovelier than their apartment in Munich. She enjoys life among the other officer’s wives and the ease with which she can purchase nearly anything her heart desires. When Frau Hahn is forced into an unlikely alliance with one of Buchenwald’s prisoners, Dr Lenard Weber, her naïve ignorance about what is going on so nearby is challenged.
“Highly original and deeply researched, Catherine Chidgey’s Remote Sympathy is a powerful and disturbing study of terrible lies and the human need to believe them... Few readers will close the covers of this book unshaken.” - Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins
A tour de force about the evils of obliviousness, Remote Sympathy compels us to question our continuing and willful ability to look the other way in a world that is once more in thrall to the idea that everything — even facts, truth and morals — is relative.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards