The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses, and set off for the shelter of the Tube station. At the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death. When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes.

Based on the true story of the worst civilian disaster of World War Two, this is an evocative, moving and beautifully crafted novel about loss and guilt, and the possibility of redemption.

First and foremost, it was agreed within our group that this novel provided some fascinating reading, in the information it supplied with regard to the actual true story of the Bethnal Green underground crush during the WWII blitz, and also the human story entwined within the facts. Little was known of this civilian disaster by any of us and there were a few who would have liked the novel to travel deeper into the factual history. But overall, we found the read a good one.

There were comments on the dry narrative and its propensity to jump about. Some found it a little repetitive and had a yes/no response to the book’s value.

While these opinions found merit with the group as a whole, the majority loved this book, both for its setting and the moral dilemmas it unearthed. We had a wonderful discussion on the effects of war on the human spirit and we even had some personal experience of London during the war years, which found firm ground with all of us. The discussion humbled us, and gave us renewed respect for those who lived through such a time.

Ann loved the opportunity the book gave for study and could list many ways she would have used it during her teaching career, and finished by remarking that the many “Don’t knows” within the story were its main prize.

Denise felt enlightened after reading it, stating that the insight into the East End community and in particular the underground setup was simply fascinating. The fact that the underground shelters, where everyone had felt safe, had failed them, was yet another human tragedy that needed recognition. Everyone also sensed the thinly disguised veil of anti-Semitism that ran through the community and we had much to say about whether this could have been the case among Brits at the time.

Is this just another World War Two story? Maybe, but the clinical, methodical look into what turned out to be a collective series of unfortunate events gives us yet another look into what we humans are capable of … the good and the bad.