The Chocolate Beggars

This novel is a must read, not only because of its timeless historical value, but also because the author has written this work from an authentic personal experience and observation, and because of this, the reader can be a valued witness to a horrible aberration in history with all its despair, and all its compassion, hidden as it often was. "The Cholate Beggars" takes place during the early years after World War Two. Refugees and Exiles streamed into West Germany and scurried everywhere to find a home. Ex-German army barracks were the only available housing, and these were turned into Displaced Persons Camps, with no indoor bathrooms or running water, and only a wood stove for heating and cooking. This story primarily focuses on a particular family with all their fears and impulses to love and to survive, while waiting years to immigrate to America. This is the backdrop for The Chocolate Beggars, Otto Osip Ochs' first novel after his published books of poetry, Season of the Sacred Fool and Under Blood Wings. The Chocolate Beggars explodes with passion and despair with displaced persons trying to find their humanity after the horrendous unnatural disaster of World War II.
The boy/narrator discovers within himself a powerful sensitivity that he cannot escape nor ignore. He finds the ugliness of refugee life often overwhelming, but at the same time, he discovers clarity and love with all its various manifestations, and this clarity and compassion are his tools to cope with an often chaotic and confusing adult world. He takes on the role of a chocolate beggar. He and his band of beggars beg Hershey chocolates from kind American soldiers, camped by his beloved river. All in all, this novel does not succumb to callousness and indifference.
This provocative and poignant narrative cannot be ignored, and if not for its Historical value, then for its display of human integrity and appeal to readers, world-wide.