Patrick Hicks

Patrick Hicks' latest novel, IN THE SHADOW OF DORA, adds some vitally important information to the Holocaust story, as well as a little-known link to the U.S. space program. Like many Americans, I had never heard of the Dora-Mittelbrau Camp, and had only a vague knowledge about where Germany's deadly V-2 rockets were made, and I certainly didn't know that they were manufactured under the most inhumane conditions by "slave labor," or inmates brought from other death camps.

Hicks brings this show more all to life with his fictional protagonist, Eli Hessel, who comes to Dora on a train from Auschwitz, where his whole family had been incinerated, "gone up the chimney." A young man, Eli knows he must declare himself useful, so tells his captors he is an electrician, and hence becomes part of the V-2 assembly line hidden deep inside a mountain near Nordhausen. For several grim months, Eli endures unimaginable conditions, nearly starving on a daily diet of moldy bread and a thin gruel, finally, in the last days of the war, reduced to eating bugs, spiders and grass. He witnesses horrible acts of cruelty and murder by his SS guards and is beaten and abused himself. He also sees visits to the tunnels by the mastermind behind the V-2, Werner von Braun, who was at the time a high-ranking SS officer. Yes, the same man known here as the father of the U.S. space program, whose brutal war record with the Nazis was carefully glossed over, if not erased. Other real-life high-ranking SS officers are also woven into the fabric of Eli's story, but it is Von Braun who most readers will recognize.

Eli manages to survive the war, if only barely - "He weighted 93 pounds when the Americans found him." Fast forward twenty-plus years. He has emigrated to America, earned a degree, married, and is teaching at Columbia when he is recruited to work as a scientist for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). He is still plagued by nightmares and memories of Dora, despite an earlier series of electro-shock treatments meant to 'cure' him. Eli is all too aware of von Braun's high-ranking presence at NASA, as well as a few other former SS types. He is also vaguely aware of certain anti-semitic elements at KSC. He subtly self-medicates his problems and unease with alcohol, keeping a bottle of vodka in his desk at work, along with a stash of candy and snacks - a holdover from his days of near starvation at Dora. The climactic scenes of Eli's last days at the Space Center, on the eve of the launch of Apollo 11, that would carry Armstrong, Aldrin and Collns to the moon, are indeed gripping and compelling, and kept me turning the pages, even though the events seemed a bit far-fetched, if not unbelievable. And then there is a winding-down epilogue which seemed tacked on, an almost Disney-esque ending. But enough, no spoilers.

Hicks's story is, as I said earlier, an important addition to the Holocaust files, but it is not of the Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel class of book. It can't be, of course, because it is fiction, not a personal narrative or primary source. It does succeed in other ways however. When Eli remembers a close casual encounter with Hitler, for example, describing his "cold blue eyes," and a man who "preached a scripture of hate," I could not help but think of the current political scene in America, filled with hate and divisiveness. And later, in an unpleasant exchange about guns with a clueless young colleague at KSC, Eli considers the stupidity of the young man's comment that if the Jews had been armed, they could have fought back. "Hitler's rise to power had very little to do with who had access to guns. It was about fear and hate." Once again, all the gun nuts and second amendment types gathering in our streets today, intimidating and sowing fear.

I enjoyed the book, but I do have a gripe. IN THE SHADOW OF DORA is filled with detailed descriptions, sometimes almost to a fault, slowing the forward momentum of the story. The grim conditions of Dora were reiterated so often they began to feel redundant. Eli's "wooden clogs" were mentioned so frequently that they could have been a character. And there was more of this in the second section set in 1969 Florida. For example, a description of Eli having a TV dinner -

"When his dinner was out of the oven, he peeled back the aluminum foil. Steam rose. Gravy bubbled. He mixed butter into the mashed potatoes and gave the peas a dusting of salt. The peach strudel got some nutmeg ... The food in his tray was separated into little compartments and he ate each one in turn. The strudel was saved for last. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and dropped the empty tray onto the floor. He burped."

I mean, Huh? Passages of description like this - and there are many - seemed unnecessary and obtrusive, and slowed down the narrative, causing me to lose interest and put the book down for a while. But maybe that's just me.

Again, some very good stuff in here, and the connection between the Holocaust and NASA is an important one historically, and should probably even be part of our history curriculum in schools. Kudos to Patrick Hicks for putting it all together. I will recommend this book highly, especially to history buffs.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

How can words possibly exist that describe the feelings of watching the black smoke pouring from the camp chimmeys around Europe, knowing that the smoke is all that is left of your family and loved ones. Knowing that you, are a 'corpse on vacation', and most likely will be joining them in the near future. " Words fail us. Language fails us. Our own imagination fails us."

Hicks has written a novel that is so incredibly realistic that i had to check a few times to make sure that there was no show more Lubizec. I've read many books about the holocaust, personal stories, the evolution, fiction and non, but none....NONE take the reader inside,the way COMMANDANT of LUBIZEC does. Life on both sides of the fence. This is the story of the commandant of a prison camp as well as the story of those trapped inside. Unfortunately there are few left alive to tell the stories of the humans who went up in smoke.

Horror? Anguish? Repugnance? Hatred? No. As i said, there are no words. show less

This book was hard to read, not because of being badly written but because of its very harsh content. There is some extremely horrific imagery and harsh lessons presented in this novel. The author doesn't shy away from how the Holocaust really was as he writes this fictional documentary on a fictional Operation Reinhard extermination camp.

I found the idea of a fictional documentary style of writing quite an ingenious way to present the Holocaust. It allows for the reader to become very show more intimately connected to the people in the book, both victims and perpetrators alike. This is something that is often absent from scholarly non-fiction. At the same time, it's able to combine multitudes of information into one volume that would be out of place in a true fictional novel. I was sucked in by this potent combination and finished this hard read in only two days.

Guth and his family, I think, were the hardest to read for me, despite some of the nightmare-inducing imagery elsewhere in the book. My mind had a very hard time balancing this man who was able to love his children in the morning and then turn around to murder other children hours later. It goes to show how deep the Nazi conditioning went that it could to this to everyday men and women. I believe this was the strongest lesson in the book for me. To recognize how that type of conditioning can happen and how easy so that it can be fought in the future.

This has been the first book in years to actually induce nightmares for me. The imagery the author chooses to include defies words, just as the Holocaust itself does. The description of the Roasts in particular were especially mind-boggling. Please definitely do keep this in mind while reading this. The imagery and the sheer horror of the proceedings will make you cry, think, and just shudder at the idea that this all really happened, just as described. I'm still shuddering just thinking of this, a week after initially reading it...

This has got to be one of those books that should be required reading for everyone. It's important not only for its subject matter, but how it presents that matter in such a way that the reader feels every emotion, sees every horror, and hears every scream and cry. This novel will leave you in tears and yet teach you some very deep lessons. This is right up there with Finding Rebecca for me in the epitome of the Holocaust novel. Highly, highly recommended and just required reading, really. show less

I want to preface this review by saying that i don't often choose to read books of short stories. This one I did because i was in awe of the authors WW2 book- Lubizec, and, what a reward!

Usually there are a few stories that are enjoyable alongside a few blah attempts. Amost always a bomb or two. NOT here!

Hicks has 12 shorts here and they are each superb. After the first one... 57 Gatwick... i thought to myself that there was no way he could even come close in excellence...but he did. Time show more and again. There were no bloopers, no duds, simply 12 stories that will reach into your heart and brain and stir up those cells.

" In the end our lives are reduced to stories told to other people, our lives never really are our own." show less