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

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The sacrifices made by his family, their struggle against freezing winters and grueling forced labor conditions, highlight the resilience of the human spirit. A collection of letters written by prime ministers, for example, which I began when I was reading a biography of each one.

I found it gripping, moving and emotional and I am full of admiration for the resilience, fortitude and humanity of its central characters. You will get to know how Lados Group even printed people's passports which became a big business for Hugli. Amazing to think that the author’s maternal family not only knew the Franks but met them again in Belsen.

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. 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. They died peacefully in the house they lived in for more than 50 years after escaping the horrors of their youth, enjoying the gentle rituals of family life.

Without their recording of my father’s story, a four-hour interview, I am not at all sure that my book would have been possible. This is certainly not going to be for everyone but I would recommend to all on account of the importance of the story. The dignity and sheer determination of this family (and many others) caught up in this terrible time in history is awe inspiring - thankyou for sharing such a personal reminder that our liberty can never be taken for granted and that love is always stronger than evil.

Daniel’s multi generational tale, tracks his mother Mirjam Wiener's journey from Germany, to Holland and eventually to starve in BergenBelson in tandem with his father Ludwig's story from Poland to slave labour in the Gulag and eventually to freezing Siberia. This truly remarkable book brings vividly home the horrors perpetrated against one family by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, serving as an indictment of their crimes against millions. Not just the horrors that the family endured but also the complete fate or serendipity that saw their stories interlink and intertwine over the time horizon. A compelling narrative of two families that survived the horrors of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. They ended up, through circuitous means, in Britain, met, married and lived a blissfully quiet life in Hendon.

The author, the grandson and son of the protagonists, narrates their survival against a historical backdrop of major events of WWII. 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? As his extensive Acknowledgements at the end of the recording show, the author has had access to a uniquely rich source of family letters and documents which he has used to make his history viscerally palpable.Jwes were not getting sufficiant amount of food there,everything were countable and people were getting weak. The book is both personal and hugely informative, thought-provoking as well as moving and inspiring. 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. and on occasion unbearably moving, this is a powerful moral work about political extremism and the importance of bearing witness, but at the heart of it is love. After moving his family to Amsterdam, he relocated his library to London and was preparing to bring over his wife and children when Germany invaded the Netherlands.