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

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Daniel’s grandfather was a German Jewish intellectual leader who warned the holocaust was coming. He relocated his family to Amsterdam for safety where they became close with Anne Frank’s family. They were eventually separated. This story is one of ingenuity, bravery, and coincidences.

These projects need our support. After the war, my grandfather found it hard to get support for his work, with many people openly wondering what the point was. They don’t wonder now.

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Daniel Finkelstein continues the 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 is a hard book to review because it is such an emotional read. This book was interesting in that it covered the two families. It is also a huge reminder, that the Holocaust happened, and it wasn’t pretty. I always go into a nonfiction book expecting to learn one new fact, and I was able to in this one so I consider that winning. I loved how emotionally invested I was able to get about two families I’ve never once met. The holocaust was a huge tragedy, and the things that Jewish people were forced to go through was abominable. The fact that anyone survived is a miracle. I didn’t quite understand before that Stalin was so involved with the killing of all these people, but the book did a fantastic job of explaining the involvement. Despite being such a fantastic story, I felt that the middle dragged a little for me, and I think some unnecessary details that didn’t really add to the story, should have been left out. From longstanding political columnist and commentator Daniel Finkelstein, a powerful memoir exploring both his mother and his father’s devastating experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during the Second World War. As a young boy, Finkelstein’s father survived incarceration during the Holocaust years with his indomitable mother after the family had become separated. Being read by Finkelstein himself, the deeply harrowing details of these years of torturous suffering and of his family’s persecution in the 1930s strengthens the impact of this indelible memoir.

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. 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. Nevertheless, the extent, the thoroughness, of my family’s collecting habit startled me when I set out to tell their story. Not simply momentous documents — the piece of paper telling the family that they were to be sent to Belsen, for instance, or the last letter of my great aunt before she was sent to Sobibor — these anyone might keep. But little things. An old passport, long expired. Or the dining room coupons from the liner that took my mother and her sisters on the last leg of the journey from Belsen to New York. Or the letters congratulating Alfred on his daughter’s engagement.

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Alfred Wiener's role as a German Jewish intellectual leader who recognized the impending Holocaust and became an archivist of Nazi crimes is both inspiring and chilling. His determination to safeguard his family and relocate them to safety in Amsterdam, where they formed a connection with Anne Frank's family, is a testament to the power of hope and human connection. 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... It is an important book and joins the contemporary Holocaust books of Philippe Sands and Jonathan Freedland. In fact there is a recording of a conversation between Daniel Finkelstein and Philippe Sands at the Hay Festival talking about the book this summer on Hayplayer.

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. Keeping things had been his profession. The main weapon of his war against fascism had been his collection of everything that the Nazis published and a record of all they had done and said. The Wiener Holocaust Library (thriving still in Russell Square) became the world’s leading centre of documentation of the Nazis. 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 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. Jwes were not getting sufficiant amount of food there,everything were countable and people were getting weak. later on what happened every one were started thinking bout food,talking about food dreamt about food,even Grete has jotted down her favourite reciepe in paper. When Grete's birthday came in March 26, 1944,and she turned 49 year old lady then one of her friends gave her three potatoes in gift. Another leitmotif – made possible by the craft of Finkelstein’s writing – is the way you’re made to understand how even deeply intelligent and politically attuned people were caught unawares by war and genocide, and were left with no idea about where to go or what to do.Both sides of the family were remarkable. His mother’s parents, Alfred and Grete Wiener, were highly educated and bookish (Grete had a PhD in economics, a rare achievement for a woman in the 20s), and ran the world’s first and foremost research centre on the Nazi party, collecting vast amounts of documents that charted its rise. Meanwhile, in Poland, Finkelstein’s father’s family had built a hugely successful iron business, and lived a settled, happy life in a peaceful multicultural city. 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. Working on the memoir of my parents that is shortly to be published ( Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival), I have realised two things. The first is that my habit is inherited.

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. One theme in Finkelstein’s work is the futility of intellectual reasoning in the face of rabid irrationality. From 1919 onwards, Finkelstein’s maternal grandfather, Alfred Wiener, worked tirelessly to use logic to combat antisemitism, writing pamphlets and speeches that, among other things, “attempted to expose the contradictions of antisemites who blamed Jews for capitalism while simultaneously characterising them as communists”. You’re made to understand how even deeply intelligent and politically attuned people were caught unawares by war and genocide Today: after a harrowing journey across the Soviet Union, Daniel's father and grandmother find themselves in the freezing Siberian wastelands, trying to survive as slave labourers on a collective farm.I had always known that my maternal grandfather, Alfred Wiener, liked to keep things, especially books. My mother used to recount seeing him off on a book-shopping trip and sighing with relief when he returned in a cab with a single carrier bag. Only for another taxi to pull up, this one with all the books in it. I had fondly imagined this story to be Mum’s little joke. But as I learned more about Alfred, I understood it was just what had actually happened. 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. Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad is a deeply moving and powerful memoir about persecution, survival, love and loss, man's inhumanity, and the almost unimaginable bravery of two ordinary families.