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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
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
Winner of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2023
‘Epic, moving and important’ ROBERT HARRIS
'A modern classic’ OBSERVER
‘An unforgettable epic of a book’ DAILY MAIL
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.
‘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 them’ ANNE APPLEBAUM, author of Gulag: A History, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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)
What listeners say about Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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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- 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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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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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- 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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- 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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- Pushkin likes books
- 26-06-23
Not an easy read or listen
Not an easy read or listen, and nor should it be. Fascinating, compelling account of the horrors of recent European history. I knew a little of the Polish army formed in Persia, but was very interested to learn more. An excellent mixture of the personal & the political.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tessa Ackerman
- 26-09-23
Powerful story of survival and family.
Both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
A familiar story of Jewish persecution and survival – both in the sense that I am aware of it, and that my family also lived through, mostly died, in those times.
Wonderful that the very human cost of persecution is recorded and remembered here in such detail and with such heart.
Many thanks to Daniel Finkelstein for the work he has done in creating this book. It was especially good to hear him read it himself.
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- K. E. Upton
- 29-09-23
Making it real with the lives of real people caught up in war and politics
This book is beautifully written and very accessible. The power of personal testimonies of two families one who lived through the rise and fall of the Nazis and the other who lived through the rise and rise of Stalin. Both families went through similar deprivations but the consequences to the perpetrators were very different. They came together and the author the product of their union. I highly recommend it. I have learnt a lot.
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