Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival

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So by keeping these little things from my own life, I am merely maintaining family tradition, staying true to my inheritance. There are lots of things that jump out - obviously the fact that millions of people could have had stories like this told about them, but we’ll never know because millions of people were murdered by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. And the fact (which Finkelstein makes explicit) that although the Nazi crimes recounted in here are well-known, the Stalinist atrocities are a lot less so (I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about the scale of the transports to gulags in Eastern Russia, and just how obsessed Stalin was with destroying Poland). They aren’t a pile of junk, even if they look like a pile of junk. Or at least that’s what I tell my wife. If like Finkelstein’s mother’s family, for example, you’ve fled Berlin because it’s no longer safe to be Jewish there, and you’re in Amsterdam, living close to Anne Frank, once war breaks out, are you better off in the Netherlands or in Britain? Now we know the answer, but Finkelstein’s skilful use of dramatic irony helps us see that at the time, smart people could conclude that the Netherlands was the better place to be and so stayed put – with disastrous consequences. Daniel's father Ludwik was born in the Polish city of Lwow, now Lviv, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, the family was rounded up by the communists. His grandfather Dolu was arrested and disappeared, while his 10-year-old father and grandmother were sent to Siberia, working as slave labourers on a collective farm. They somehow survived starvation and freezing winters, living in a house they built from cow dung, but always hoping to be reunited with Dolu.

But tragically, despite “all the truth-telling combating all the lies”, Hitler still came to power, destroying Alfred’s “romantic idea” of “the liberal values he associated with his country’s better nature”. There’s an echo here of Clive James’s haunting ode to Viennese cafe culture in Cultural Amnesia: “For the Jewish intelligentsia, cultivated to the fingertips, it was very hard to grasp the intensity of the irrationality they were dealing with – the irrationality that was counting the hours until it could deal with them.” Mirjam, as an adult and survivor, also emerges as a woman of remarkable wisdom, someone who has seen the worst of humanity and chosen to represent the best. For instance, there is an ongoing controversy over the decision taken by the leadership of the Dutch Jewish community to work with the Nazis so as to avoid immediate retribution. Her response is the correct one: it was the Nazis’ fault. There is no value in blaming the victims for making one impossible choice over another.Likewise when Justin Bieber created global outrage for commenting in the visitors’ book at Anne Frank’s house that he hoped “ she would have been a belieber”, Mirjam defends him. The whole point about Anne was her ordinariness, someone who absolutely would have been a fan of a teen idol. In a world of perpetual outrage such calm reason from someone who had every right to play the victim is a balm. Daniel Finkelstein reads the final part of his heartrending memoir of his parents' experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during WWII, this week following his father's story at the hands of Stalin.This was a very emotional read. Tears were shed in parts. But later in the book comes the good parts where you learn of all these families were able to accomplish, despite what they had been through.

And when you are gone, your family will want to know these things about you, to be reminded of you. Good grief this is a wonderful book. I got it on kindle and audible, where the author reads it himself. The first and most overwhelming impression is just how fortunate we are to be living in comparative safety - this was not the norm throughout history, nor is it the norm throughout the world. Today: after his arrest, Daniel's grandfather is transported to a gulag on the edge of the Artic Circle. Survival, he knows, is virtually impossible...Finkelstein, a Times columnist and member of the House of Lords, isn’t trying to explain why these utopian ideologies arose. His preoccupation is on the who and how: “…how the great forces of history crashed down in a terrible wave on two happy families; how it tossed them and turned them, and finally returned what was left to dry land”. In the autumn of 2012, we tidied the lounge, hired a party tent from some people we found on the internet and asked a man from that place round the corner to supply some food. And then we held a party for my 50th birthday.

A compelling narrative of two families that survived the horrors of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Grete were expecting palsetine exchange certificate so that she can save atleast Mirjam,Eva and Ruth,one can assume how worse situation would have been there.For any parents , seeing their children grow up is an emotional moment. There is a moment in that when Ruth is getting 16 years old and there is a very poignant conversation between mother Grete and Ruth. It is important to read this book to comprehend the humanity and the feelings of parents. I came to know more about the sympathiser’s life and their circumstances in which they have bengined towards the jews,whether it will be Lados group,Camille and Hugli's local people. Daniel Finkelstein continues his heartrending memoir of his parents' experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during WWII, this week focusing on the story of his father's family at the hands of Stalin. This book is all about the jews family who is survivors of holocaust, its all about the journey especially the story of parents who want to survive just because to keep safe of thier heirs. it is all about the hope,dream, psychology and himanity. through out the book one can say wow or some time one can dismay.Yep,its all about living thoughts which is invisible but you can feel it.

Today: after being reunited, Daniel's grandparents and father, still now only 12, must find a way to live and to make sense of what happened to them at the hands of the communists... Today: as winter approaches in Siberia, Daniel's grandmother and father fight for survival. But the course of the war is about to shift, and with it their fortunes... Finkelstein's narrative is nothing short of epic, chronicling the harrowing experiences of two families uprooted by the horrors of World War II. The author skillfully weaves together the stories of his grandparents, Alfred Wiener and Ludwik, highlighting their resilience and strength in the face of unimaginable adversity.