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

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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. The family story is interwoven with a historical perspective and is very clear also on Russian atrocities carried out which have never been tried and accounted for in the way that Nazi crimes were at Nuremburg.

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. I imagine this book will become important to the further teaching of the Holocaust on both an individual human level, and on a more socio-political one too. I certainly found the German part of the story more interesting than the Russian / Polish side, though the gulags sounded terrible.Not just because the author delineates some of Stalin's crimes along with those of Hitler which few accounts of the period do ,but because of the personal perspective of the narrative. This is the type of book I always choose to read - WW2, Nazis and anti-Semitism, but I found this book over-long.

Poignant personal details help remind the reader that each one of the millions exterminated by both Hitler and Stalin had a story, a family, a future taken away in horrific circumstances that must never be allowed to happen again. 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.

He has been Political Columnist of the Year four times and recently joined the board of Chelsea Football Club. 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. I am certain that this is an interesting story for the author’s family to read, but I didn’t find myself becoming involved with the characters at all. WWII was started by Hitler and Stalin, both killed millions of people, both deported millions, and this is the story of a girl who survived the Holocaust and a boy who survived deportation in Siberia.

It is an important book and joins the contemporary Holocaust books of Philippe Sands and Jonathan Freedland. Such a brilliantly written book about how Hitler’s and Stalin’s appalling states ripped two families apart, and how they - somehow - managed not only to survive WWII but produce such a remarkable family at the end. 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 certainly learned a lot from this, and I feel that its dual focus means that almost anyone, even those familiar with one part of the narrative, could discover something new from this book. 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 has certainly brought home to me how extraordinarily important it remains as a record of the Holocaust, as is the wonderful Refugee Voices project of the Association of Jewish Refugees.