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 The House at the Bridge is one of the best books I have ever read. It is the true story of the Wallichs and the life they had before the Nazi occupation of Potsdam, Germany. Though the Wallich's villa on the Havel River was surely a sanctuary, it is not described as anything lavish. Rather its beauty comes from the beings that lived within. Kristnacht marked the invasion by the Gestapo and the end to Paul Wallich's earthly life. Prompted by the terror he felt for his life as a Jewish banker, Wallich drowned himself in the Havel.
In time, the House at the Bridge became a boarding house for lost children of the revolution. With reunification, the Berlin Wall, only fifty feet from the main house, came down. The Wallich family was allowed to reclaim their Potsdam home. But it is a ghost of the edifice that stood on the Havel. To this day it stands, for sale, unclaimed, a grim reminder to the people and places of paradise lost.
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