History Lessons

As with most every religion, there are certain days in the religion’s history that hold special significance. For Christians around the world, today is just such a day for on this day so many centuries ago, a son, having just days before made the ultimate sacrifice in his father’s name, was risen from the dead.

You may think that this is a religious blog, but on the contrary, the coincidence in my writing it on a religious day is one that was triggered by the last few weeks spent reading many historical fiction novels.

Most of my adult life I have been interested in tales of counter espionage aka the Mitch Rapp series from Minnesota author Vince Flynn, but for the last couple of years now my tastes have been tempted by different genres as I read advance copies of other author’s works. Having had my literary eyes opened reading those works in other genres, I also discovered historical fiction.

If your thoughts turn to history textbooks, you will be surprised to discover that the historical fiction genre is, in fact, full of books that are based on history; books that have been extensively researched. Many of my recent reads have been by author Anna Stewart and have centered on many aspects of World War II. Stewart engages researchers to verify the facts of stories that survivors of that generation have told to develop fictional characters based on actual events and many times actual people.

My first exposure to Stewart’s writing was “The Midwife Of Auschwitz”. (Any author who wonders if Facebook ads work should know I bought the book after seeing such an ad on my Facebook feed.) Intrigued by the question of why midwives would be needed in one of the most notorious concentration camps, I was soon lost in the story of two young women who became midwives for the unfortunate Jews who ended up in the camp. Alone and afraid of what was to come, their pregnancies and the resulting births were often the only shred of humanity they had left to them. It was an eye-opening, often tear inducing story that once started I could not put down.

Coming from a family with a strong interest in historical events, including my Uncle Ronnie who was a high school history teacher and my father who may have possibly read everything World War II related, I discovered a serious lack of knowledge about the war and, more importantly, about the suffering of the innocents whose lives were destroyed by the greed and immorality of the Germans and their accomplices. Many times I would be forced to put the book down and google for information on what I was reading to see if it had really happened. That led to further research on my part and the need to know even more.

Author Stewart most likely did not write the book hoping that her readers would do their own research, but reading is learning and whether it be non-fiction, fiction based on fact, or as I write, pure fiction designed to tell a story or elicit an emotion, reading is learning. Every book we read helps shape who we are as a human being. Reading helps us evolve and understand and question. It allows us to feel empathy for a complete stranger. It expands our horizons and exposes us to points of view that, while different from our own, allow us to understand and accept that someone else, reading the same book, will have different points of view.

Historical fiction also serves another purpose. Remember the saying, “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it”? Exposing yourself to well researched historical fiction helps us remember the past. Reading these works educates us and entertains us and allows us to understand more than just the what and when of significant historical events. Great historical fiction will open our eyes to the why and how these things happened so that lessons can be learned and the history we would rather forget is not repeated.

So read. Expand your mind. Open your world to well-written books that tell stories from the history of the people that lived, died and survived. Your world will be richer for it.

Be well, my friends….

~BAL