Tajné záměry – Baddiel David (2008)

Many books testify to the suffering of Jews affected by the horrors of the Holocaust in the 1930s and during World War II. David Baddiel, an acclaimed British author, in Secret Intentions sensitively, yet soberly and without sentimentality, tells the story of a young Jew from a rabbinical family who becomes intrigued by Marxist theories, which he hopes will remedy the unjust world, marries a Catholic woman, abandons Jewish traditions, emigrates from Königsberg to Great Britain to escape Nazism, and is shocked by internment in a camp on the Isle of Man after the war breaks out. The author captures situations not only through the eyes of German Jewish refugees, mostly from the intelligentsia and outstanding representatives of culture, but also through the eyes of conspirators preparing to murder Nazis, as well as from the perspective of Britons from various social classes, including workers from the Ministry of Information, those who sympathize with and help the Jews, but also those who do not like them and do not welcome them kindly. This objective and unvarnished approach is particularly interesting for our readers. Isaac Fabian, the main character, is not a stereotypical hero. He and his wife Lulu experience tension, humiliation, anxiety, disappointment, inner struggles, love, friendship, and more in a foreign environment.