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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad
- A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival
- Narrated by: Daniel Finkelstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad
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Summary
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
Daniel’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.
Daniel’s father Ludwik was born in Lwów, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, Ludwik’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 Finkelstein’s parents’ 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.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"A terrific piece of work, epic, moving and important, the grim history of 20th-century Europe encapsulated in one extraordinary, ordinary family." (Robert Harris)
"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. Diligently researched...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." (Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny)
"Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad is a tale of survival and humanity surrounded by death and brutality. At a time when Holocaust denial is on the rise among the young, and people talk fondly again of communism, it is a reminder that for all their problems, our wonderful, messy democracy and our great shared European civilisation must be constantly defended." (George Osborne)
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What listeners say about Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Rachel Redford
- 03-07-23
An indelible listening experience
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.
It is impossible to find words adequate to describe the demonic and barbarous brutality meted out to the extended family and to the millions of other Jewish people . The dreadful facts and statistics are well known but I found the greatest strength of these 12 hours to be the haunting minutiae of the family’s lives.
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. Finkelstein’s family was no ordinary family – his grandfather Dr Alfred Wiener documented the antisemitism in Germany during the 1920s and 30s, material used during the Nuremberg Trials and now housed in the Wiener Holocaust Library which he founded .
This was indeed an exceptional family and detailing their experiences has given life also to the millions of unrecorded Jewish people who did not survive. It is a listening experience which cannot and should not be forgotten.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- maggie
- 25-06-23
Compelling
I could not stop listening. We must never forget. Accounts like this are hugely important, as is the Wiener Holocaust library.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Pooh Sticks
- 06-07-23
Haunting and astounding in equal measure
An incredible story of amazing courage. Should be on every school curriculum. Beautifully read too
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- Cathy
- 24-09-23
Well researched and beautifully narrated
I honestly don’t know what to say about this audio book, at times it was a really difficult listen, particularly when you hear of the devastation brought to just one family and their friends as a result of the holocaust and the horrific events of WW2. That being said, the level of research and the narration by the author are just breathtaking. Although I studied this period of history for my O Levels, I learned so much about the politics and decisions that were inflicted on the ordinary people. I think, as others have said, that this should be a compulsory listen for each generation so we never forget the suffering of so many and their bravery.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jackie
- 10-08-23
Survival at the deepest level
This is one of the most encompassing truths about the attempts of and by ignorance to destroy a peaceful people and the patchwork quilt of a family and their friends as some survived hell and some did not....engrossing.
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- Amazon Customer
- 27-02-24
Moving and very relevant for today
Fascinating detail of personal courage and survival in the twin evil empires of the 1930s and 1940s.
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- Olive Acaster
- 02-04-24
Inhumanity v humanity
The love and family connection kept their hope alive - the sacrifice and inner belief gave the families strength to never give up hope that the inhumanity would end. A book truly inspiring, sad and yet full of love and strength.
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- su through the looking glass!
- 07-07-23
Inspiring and humbling
A well written and well narrated memoir of survival and humanity in the worst of times. 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.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nick Rogers
- 21-06-23
An important reference
Daniel F, a massively poignant story in modern times. Your family testimony is both shocking and very important in a modern context. Thank you for compiling such a personal and important record. Humanity is judged on learning lessons. Your family went through too much
I’m sorry for your and your race’s loses
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- Sandy May
- 30-07-23
Absolutely riveting
Through telling the stories of his parents and grandparents lives through the Holocaust years (both under the Nazis and Russians), Daniel Finkelstein has provided the wider world some insight into how so many millions of European Jewish families were torn apart, murdered and destroyed. Yet despite all their suffering his parents survived and indeed like almost all survivors their survival was against almost insurmountable odds. Daniel Finkelstein has written a remarkable book which he also narrates superbly. I was especially very interested in hearing about Daniel's maternal grandfather's involvement in recording the atrocities of Nazism from the start and his establishment of the Wiener library.
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