I was not saying Mendelsohn never entered the Frankfurt Judengasse. I was only saying that the incident described in the book about the particulars of his entry to the ghetto took place upon his entry to the Berlin ghetto, not the Frankfurt ghetto, and that many readers probably know that.

I think you will find in many historical fiction novels, authors add endnotes explaining their choices. In my opinion it would have been very helpful to clarify which Kracauer you meant, because it sounded as if you were referring to the author of the two-volume history of the Frankfurt ghetto.

The best source I know for information about the Judengasse is the Rothschild biography, Founder, by the late Israeli journalist Amos Elon. In that book, Elon tells of a visit to the Judengasse by Moses Mendelsohn in 1775. He places the anecdote in question at that time. (Pages 33/34.) That is how Mendelsohn entered my book.

The young Isadore Kracauer in my book is intended to be the grandfather of the actual one. I did not state this, but to do so would have read like a footnote for Wikipedia, inappropriate in a novel.

In my book, Guttle’s father does arrange her marriage. The fact that she was clever enough to point him in the right direction is part of her character.

Finally, the reviewer calls it “chutzpah” to have invented letters and conversations. I call it fiction.

Robert Mayer
author,
The Origin of Sorrow