Oskar Gassner is a German-Jewish journalist living in New York City. He is a refugee, having escaped Nazi Germany just months after the pogrom of 1938. OskarÆs inability to deal with his torment and anguish over his knowledge of the persecution of Jews by Germans leads to his suicide. OskarÆs hatred of Germany and all things German leads him to fail to view the world from a balanced perspective. As such, he turns to suicide because he cannot integrate his Jewish heritage with his hatred of his German heritage. To a large degree, MalamudÆs title suggests that, like Oskar, it is impossible after Nazi Germany to maintain a German-Jewish identity. It also suggests that in wiping out the Jews, Germany also wiped out a significant portion of its own culture.
The narrator in The German Refugee is significant. For Oskar finds himself dislocated in a harsh new environment. He is Jewish but he is also German. He speaks, writes, dresses, and thinks like a German. He feels at odds with his German heritage because of the Nazi atrocities toward Jews. He describes his own German as a ôfilthy tongueö (Malamud 24). He also hates Germany and its people. As he expresses, ôhumanityàdoes not grow on Germany earthö (Malamud 29). The detached nature of Oskar from himself is related to the workman-like nature of the detached narrator. Before Oskar kills himself, the detached narrator makes an inquiry that seems to imply that Oskar will not be able to survive as a refugee at odds with himself and his new environment, ôCould there be something more than a refugeeÆs displacement, alienation, financial insecurity, being in a strange land without friends or a speakable tongue? My speculation was the old one: not all drown in this ocean, why does he?ö (Malamud 27).
The setting also contributes to the story. Germans were self-conscious of their heritage while living abroad during World War II. As the full atrocities of the Holo...