"The German Refugee" Bernard Malamud

Bernard Malamud found Jewish characters to be "the ideal metaphor for the struggling human being.  acceptance of the Jewish identity becomes, for his characters, acceptance of the human condition."  The main character in "The German Refugee" is Oskar Gassner a misplaced Jew trying to find a place for himself in America.  Germany turned on him, Nazis wanted to kill him.  In Germany Oskar was educated and articulate, but he lost the only language he knew so he in many ways was as helpless as a baby in America.  Oskar's life was made more bearable by a young English teacher.  Oskar was a lonely man who has lost his faith in humanity.  His people where being exterminated from this Earth and through a letter Oskar, which finds no comfort in being able to read, discovers his wife has been murdered by Nazis.  Her story being only one of millions.  Oskar upon hearing this news takes his own life.  Through Malamud's creation Oskar learns too much about sadness and the bleak state of the world and human conditions, the 40's were a suffering time.