PlainGeets

Some truths arrive like a sudden shock, others creep in slowly, reshaping everything you thought you knew. Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room is a novel about these truths – the ones that rewrite personal histories and fracture identities. Not the brightest, and most hopeful of books to start the year with, but incredibly beautiful, poignant and relevant in the current international political climate of rising nationalism and revisionist histories. Seiffert’s three protagonists, Lore, Micha, and Helmut, mirror the struggles we see in many nations today: the choice between reckoning with history, rewriting it, or refusing to see it at all.

The three protagonists grapple with the weight of their country’s past in vastly different ways. One remains blind to it, one is forced to confront it, and one goes looking for answers, no matter the cost. Their struggles echo the way societies today reckon with their darkest chapters. Some choose denial. Some search for reconciliation. And some, even when faced with undeniable evidence, refuse to see at all.

Helmut never questions the world he was born into. He grows up in 1930s Berlin, watching Germany rise to power with unwavering patriotism. A physical disability prevents him from serving in the war, so he finds purpose in photography, capturing the everyday life of the city. Through his camera lens, he notices the streets growing emptier, the people disappearing, the shifts in the rhythm of Berlin, but he does not ask why. Even as destruction reaches his doorstep, he clings to his faith in the nation he has always admired. When the war finally reduces Berlin to ruins, when there is nothing left to deny, the truth arrives. But does it matter now? What difference does recognition make when it comes too late?

Helmut’s story is a chilling reflection of willful blindness in times of crisis. In today’s world, where conflicts are justified with revisionist histories and propaganda obscures facts, how many people, out of loyalty, fear, or sheer habit, refuse to see what is happening around them? At what point does silence become complicity?

For Lore, truth does not arrive as an intellectual realization but as a slow, painful reckoning. She is just a child when Germany falls, raised in a Nazi family where ideology was never questioned. When her parents are arrested, she is left to lead her younger siblings across a shattered country. She begins this journey with a child’s certainty that the world she knew was good, that her parents could not possibly be guilty of what they are accused of. But along the way, cracks form. The war has reduced everything to rubble…and not just buildings, but also beliefs. Photographs of concentration camp victims force her to question what she was told. And in a moment of quiet devastation, a Jewish survivor shows her kindness, dismantling the final illusions to which she was clinging.

Unlike Helmut, Lore has no choice but to confront the truth. She did not commit any crimes, yet she must carry the consequences of her family’s past. This is the reality for many societies today that have inherited the weight of historical injustices – whether colonial legacies, ethnic violence, or systemic oppression. When faced with uncomfortable histories, do we acknowledge them, or do we look away? And what does it mean to reckon with a past we did not create but are nonetheless shaped by?

Micha, unlike Lore, actively searches for answers. He is not confronted with the truth as a child. He goes looking for it as an adult. When he discovers that his grandfather was an SS officer, he becomes obsessed with uncovering the details. Was the man he loved capable of atrocities? Did he carry out executions? Was he guilty? Micha’s pursuit isolates him, when his family, unwilling to revisit the past, resists his questions. His girlfriend pulls away, exhausted by his inability to let go. And those who were victims of his grandfather’s generation are forced to relive their pain because of his inquiries. The more he uncovers, the more alienated he becomes. But knowing the truth does not bring closure. It only opens new wounds.

For me, Micha’s struggle mirrors those who push for historical accountability today. From activists demanding justice for war crimes to journalists exposing state-sponsored violence, the pursuit of truth often comes at a personal cost. In a world where governments and institutions are actively suppressing inconvenient histories, discouraging people from digging too deep, how far should we go in seeking the truth when others want it buried?

Seiffert’s novel presents three paths when faced with unsettling historical truths. Helmut refuses to see until denial is no longer possible. Lore is forced to confront it, even when she does not want to. And Micha digs relentlessly, even when it isolates him. These struggles feel eerily familiar in today’s geopolitical landscape, where past and present atrocities are either acknowledged, rewritten, or ignored.

As I read the book, I was couldn’t help but see the parallels in today’s geopolitical landscape, where past and present atrocities are either acknowledged, rewritten, or ignored.  A must read, even though the stories are heart-rending, and force you to confront how we process our darkest chapters.