Hitler, Stalin, Mum And Dad

Synopsis

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Epic, moving and important' ROBERT HARRIS'I'm not sure I've ever come across quite such a revelatory account of the Holocaust and yet despite the horror and the sadness it's also a 'memoir of miraculous survival'. I can't recommend it enough' ANTHONY HOROWITZ

'A modern classicâ 364;(tm) OBSERVER â 364; 32;An unforgettable epic of a bookâ 364;(tm) DAILY MAIL From longstanding political columnist and commentator Daniel Finkelstein, a powerful memoir exploring both his mother and his fatherâ 364;(tm)s devastating experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during the Second World War. Danielâ 364;(tm)s mother Mirjam Wiener was the youngest of three daughters born in Germany to Alfred and Margarete Wiener. Alfred, a decorated hero from the Great War, is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognise the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews and began, in 1933, to catalogue in detail Nazi crimes. 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. Before long, the family was rounded up, robbed and sent to starve in Bergen-Belsen. Danielâ 364;(tm)s father Ludwik was born in LwÃ3w, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, Ludwikâ 364;(tm)s father was arrested and sentenced to hard labour in the Gulag. Meanwhile, deported to Siberia and working as a slave labourer on a collective farm, Ludwik survived the freezing winters in a tiny house he built from cow dung. Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad is a deeply moving, personal and at times horrifying memoir about Finkelsteinâ 364;(tm)s parentsâ 364;(tm) experiences at the hands of the two genocidal dictators of the twentieth century. It is a story of persecution; survival; and the consequences of totalitarianism told with the almost unimaginable bravery of two ordinary families shining through. â 364; 32;Danny Finkelstein has written an elegant, moving account of the history of one family, and in doing so shines light on the history of the 20th century. If you want to understand Hitler and Stalin, read this book about people whose lives were upended by both of themâ 364;(tm) ANNE APPLEBAUM, author of Gulag: A History, winner of the Pulitzer Prize