eshchory

From the start you realise that this story is going to have a tragic end and I found it most touching when the author mentioned with regret the fact that he had never been given the chance to relate to his parents as an adult.
But in fact this story is not really about the Klaar family in WWII and he tells very little of his own story. Rather it is a history of his family in Austria, how they were treated as Jews, how they became Austrians and also how they were lulled into a false security and into thinking it would not happen to them.
I was surprised to realise that Jews were such a large proportion of the population with mixed and Aryan classes both at school and in the scouts. I always assumed that Jews were either totally assimilated or ghettoised and forgotten.
He also reiterates just how much was known of the Nazis evils deeds even before the Anschluss and declaration of war and how willfully blind the Allied authorities were to evidence of these events.

A charming and interesting book which is also a chilling reminder of a whole culture that is now lost.