The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain: An Oblique Look at the Holocaust in Switzerland
When Rose Tremain, the celebrated British novelist, wrote The Gustav Sonata, she wanted to explore the issue of neutrality during one of the most turbulent periods in European history — the era of World War II. Where better to set a novel about neutrality than in Switzerland which has the oldest policy of armed neutrality in global affairs? The Swiss have not participated in a foreign war since the Treaty of Paris established the country’s neutrality in 1815. But, would Switzerland, bordering on Nazi Germany, be able to remain neutral when confronted with a possible German invasion? How would neutral Switzerland respond to refugees fleeing the Nazis?
Published in 2016, The Gustav Sonata considers Swiss neutrality from various angles. In an interview, Tremain stated that she was interested in examining neutrality not only as it unfolded in Switzerland, but “to create a person who is striving for a kind of a neutrality” and therefore refuses to engage with passionate feelings. To that end, she develops the character of Gustav Perle, a Swiss child growing up at the time of World War II. He adores his mother, but she is an angry, hostile widow who is incapable of returning her son’s love. Instead, his mother advises him to be like Switzerland and master himself. Early in the novel, Tremain describes Gustav:
He never cried. He could often feel a cry trying to come up from his heart, but he always forced it down because this was how his mother had told him to behave in the world. He had to master himself. The world was alive with wrongdoing, she said…In this way, Gustav would be prepared for the uncertainties to come because even in Switzerland where the war hadn’t trespassed, nobody yet knew how the future would unfold. So you see, she said, you have to be like Switzerland. Do you understand me? You have to hold yourself together and be courageous and stay separate and strong. Then you will have the right kind of life.”
Gustav’s self-mastery is put to the test in his lifelong friendship with Anton Zwiebel, a talented Jewish pianist suffering from stage fright, which sabotages his career as a performing artist. As the story progresses, the intense friendship between the boys comes to define Gustav’s adulthood and exposes the pitfalls of remaining neutral. Gustav must ultimately choose between a bland existence of taking care of others or acknowledging his own needs and passions.
If Gustav learns self-mastery from his mother, the life of his father, Erich Perle, might have taught him the opposite tendency. Erich Perle served as the assistant chief of police in a small Swiss town in the 1930s. Following the Anschluss in 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Switzerland closed its border to those entering the country without proper entry permits, particularly Jews from Germany and Austria who had a “J” stamped on their passports. As the number of Jewish refugees trying to enter Switzerland at the Austrian border increased and put pressure on local police officers to enforce restrictions against Jewish refugees, Erich Perle faced a moral dilemma. He could follow government instructions to send back Jewish refugees to face their likely death or breach the explicit orders of his government.
In the novel, Erich Perle chooses to assist Jewish refugees escaping Nazis persecution by stamping the refugees’ passports with a false date so that it would look as if they had entered Switzerland before the border had been closed to them.Erich Perle is unwilling to remain neutral. Instead, he risks his life, and by extension the wellbeing of his wife and son, Gustav. Swiss authorities discover Perle’s illegal activity and strip him of his position. Humiliated and dishonoured, Erich Perle dies of a heart attack before the end of the war.
Tremain based the fictional character of Erich Perle loosely on the historical figure, Paul Grueninger, who served as a Swiss police officer at the outset of World War II. Motivated by altruism, he disregarded official instructions and allowed desperate Jewish refugees to enter Switzerland by falsifying their arrival dates and treating their entry into Switzerland as legal. But, unlike the fictional Erich Perle, Grueninger took his altruistic stance several steps further. He impeded government efforts to trace illegal Jewish refugees and paid with his own money to buy winter clothes for needy refugees who had been forced to leave all their belongings behind.
When Swiss authorities discovered Grueninger’s actions, he was dismissed from the police force, his benefits were suspended, and he was brought to trial on charges of illegally permitting the entry of 3,600 Jews into Switzerland by falsifying their registration papers. In1941, the court found him guilty of breach of duty. He was deprived of his right to a pension, thrown out of his state-sponsored apartment, convicted of forgery and forced to pay the trial costs. Ostracized and forgotten, Grueninger lived for the rest of his life in difficult circumstances. In 1971, a year before his death, Yad Vashem bestowed the title of Righteous Among the Nations on Paul Grueninger.
Neither Paul Grueninger nor the fictionalized father figure in The Gustav Sonata remain neutral when confronted with a humanitarian refugee crisis. But why did Tremain alter the facts and remove Erich Perle from the novel so early in the plot of The Gustav Sonata? The answer lies in the author’s oblique approach to the Holocaust, which provides the context for The Gustav Sonata, but not the main subject matter. Indeed, Tremain takes great care to keep the Holocaust off stage in this novel. She depicts the Holocaust in a muffled whisper rather than in a thundering roar. Most importantly, she makes the decision to tell a story about the Holocaust in Switzerland from the perspective of a Swiss family rather than a Jewish family. By killing off the Swiss father who is the character most impacted by the Holocaust, Tremain ensures that the events of World War II will not overshadow the hero’s journey at the core of this novel. That journey focuses on Gustav’s transformation from an emotionally closed, passive child to a fully realized adult with the ability to make active decisions about his life. He is capable of human agency, no longer needing to hide behind the shadow of neutrality.