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| La 25e heure
| | Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu
| Gheorghiu's best-known book depicts the plight of a naive young farmhand, Johann Moritz, under German, Soviet and American occupation of Central Europe. Johann is sent to a labor camp by a police captain who covets his wife, Suzanna. At first, he is tagged as a Jew. Later, he is "rescued" by a Nazi officer who determines he is a perfect Aryan specimen, and forces him into service in the SS as a model for German propaganda. Imprisoned after the war, he is severely beaten by his Russian captors, then put on trial by Allied forces because of his work for the Nazis. Traian, son of the priest Koruga, is a famous novelist and minor diplomat whose first internment comes when he is picked up as an enemy alien by the Yugoslavs. Once imprisoned, the two heroes begin an odyssey of torture and despair. In the end, Traian dies in a concentration camp, while Johann is forced by the Americans to enlist in the army, just as World War III is about to start, or to be interned in a camp (as well as his family) as a citizen from an enemy country.
In 1967, Carlo Ponti produced a film based on Gheorghiu's book. The movie was directed by Henri Verneuil, with Anthony Quinn as Johann, Virna Lisi as Suzanna, and Serge Reggiani as Traian. -From Wikipedia
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