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  • Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

  • A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival
  • By: Daniel Finkelstein
  • Narrated by: Daniel Finkelstein
  • Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (152 ratings)
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Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

By: Daniel Finkelstein
Narrated by: Daniel Finkelstein
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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.

© 2023 Daniel Finkelstein (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

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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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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An almost incredible story

Humbling, shocking, educational and at times uplifting. That so much love and fortitude can shine through such experiences with so little bitterness, self pity or recrimination is wonderful. Thank you Daniel for your clear, uncomplicated telling of what horrors happened to your innocent family

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2 people found this helpful

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  • RW
  • 29-12-23

Astonishing story, superbly told.

The granularity and attention to detail on what must have been such a personally painful project for so much of the book is top class. A triumph in storytelling, with the parallel stories constantly mirroring and diverging in such different but somehow similar ways is remarkable. Eye opening and heartbreaking in equal measure, this is one of the most powerful things that I have ever read or heard. Thoroughly recommended to anyone with ears or eyes to experience for themselves.

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1 person found this helpful

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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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Amazing stories, brilliantly told.

An exceptional book, a real education - on one hand it’s a book you want to get through and follow the narrative quickly as it’s so compelling, and on the other there are so many points where you just have to stop and reflect. Excellent. Recommended.

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    4 out of 5 stars

I learned so much from this book particularly about the experience of polish Jews and the Katyn Massacre.

It is a heartbreaking and frequently a heartwarming story. In my view so important to keep telling these stories - not only to honour family members who were murdered and those who survived but to stand as a warning. Well done Daniel Finkelstein and thank you.

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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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Brilliant.

Listen to this if you have a mother or father, a son or a daughter. Listen to this if you are tempted to put the desires of your country above the needs of those you love.

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Brilliantly personal and sweeping

A tender but unsentimental story of an extraordinary family. The Soviet experience was a little told dimension. Presented as it should be by the author.

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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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