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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival

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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

By: Daniel Finkelstein
Narrated by: Daniel Finkelstein
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About this listen

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 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.

© 2023 Daniel Finkelstein (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
20th Century Germany Historical Military War Stalin Imperialism Holocaust

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

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A must read…..

The most wonderful book I’ve ever read. Detailing historical facts clearly and without bitterness, full of compassion for all those who suffered, and love for and pride in his parents and grandparents, who went through so much.

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A family story that provides historical insights

This story exceeded my expectations. I could stop listening. It is a historical reflection on the last century but more importantly a family history that could have been told by many families living within the grip of NAZI regime. It was well researched and well written.
While the author’s ancestors have left behind notable legacies, he has followed in the same path with this truly insightful historical and at times passionate account of the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin. It seems that we are revisiting these events today as similar as the far right and far left (or autocratic leaders) grab power and trample over people. I do hope we learn some of the lessons of the past. This is timely book that is well worth reading.

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