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. This is a hard book to review because it is such an emotional read. This book was interesting in that it covered the two families. It is also a huge reminder, that the Holocaust happened, and it wasn’t pretty. I always go into a nonfiction book expecting to learn one new fact, and I was able to in this one so I consider that winning. I loved how emotionally invested I was able to get about two families I’ve never once met. The holocaust was a huge tragedy, and the things that Jewish people were forced to go through was abominable. The fact that anyone survived is a miracle. I didn’t quite understand before that Stalin was so involved with the killing of all these people, but the book did a fantastic job of explaining the involvement. Despite being such a fantastic story, I felt that the middle dragged a little for me, and I think some unnecessary details that didn’t really add to the story, should have been left out. Such a brilliantly written book about how Hitler’s and Stalin’s appalling states ripped two families apart, and how they - somehow - managed not only to survive WWII but produce such a remarkable family at the end. Daniel’s grandfather was a German Jewish intellectual leader who warned the holocaust was coming. He relocated his family to Amsterdam for safety where they became close with Anne Frank’s family. They were eventually separated. This story is one of ingenuity, bravery, and coincidences.

So by keeping these little things from my own life, I am merely maintaining family tradition, staying true to my inheritance. Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad is a deeply moving and powerful memoir about persecution, survival, love and loss, man's inhumanity, and the almost unimaginable bravery of two ordinary families. This is a special book. It is deep, it is wise and it holds huge emotional power. I cannot recommend it highly enough. A powerful family memoir written and researched by a great writer. Tough to read in many places, only made easier in the knowledge that these people must have survived (when so many didn't) because their son/grandson, Daniel is here to tell the tale, all these years later.This is a story that is tragic yet gives one hope. A story of family and love that survived unimaginable hardships.

Daniel's father Ludwik was born in the Polish city of Lwow, now Lviv, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland, the family was rounded up by the communists. His grandfather Dolu was arrested and disappeared, while his 10-year-old father and grandmother were sent to Siberia, working as slave labourers on a collective farm. They somehow survived starvation and freezing winters, living in a house they built from cow dung, but always hoping to be reunited with Dolu. These projects need our support. After the war, my grandfather found it hard to get support for his work, with many people openly wondering what the point was. They don’t wonder now. Daniel Finkelstein continues his heartrending memoir of his parents' experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during WWII, this week focusing on the story of his father's family at the hands of Stalin. Today: after being reunited, Daniel's grandparents and father, still now only 12, must find a way to live and to make sense of what happened to them at the hands of the communists...An amazing story, well told. Probably the most interesting aspect is that it tells the stories of two sides of the Second World War: the Germans and the Russian, which, apart from the concentration camps, are not so well known nowadays. Personally, I’d always believed that the Dutch had been helpful to refugees and Jewish people, but it appears they weren’t necessary so. Perhaps Anne Frank’s story has persuaded me otherwise previously. Amazing to think that the author’s maternal family not only knew the Franks but met them again in Belsen. I certainly found the German part of the story more interesting than the Russian / Polish side, though the gulags sounded terrible. Likewise, Ludwik's journey from a prosperous Jewish family in Poland to Siberia and then Kazakhstan under Stalin's rule is heart-wrenching. The sacrifices made by his family, their struggle against freezing winters and grueling forced labor conditions, highlight the resilience of the human spirit. They aren’t a pile of junk, even if they look like a pile of junk. Or at least that’s what I tell my wife. This is certainly not going to be for everyone but I would recommend to all on account of the importance of the story. We may think we know what happened but first hand accounts like these strike differently. 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.

Finkelstein's narrative is nothing short of epic, chronicling the harrowing experiences of two families uprooted by the horrors of World War II. The author skillfully weaves together the stories of his grandparents, Alfred Wiener and Ludwik, highlighting their resilience and strength in the face of unimaginable adversity. One theme in Finkelstein’s work is the futility of intellectual reasoning in the face of rabid irrationality. From 1919 onwards, Finkelstein’s maternal grandfather, Alfred Wiener, worked tirelessly to use logic to combat antisemitism, writing pamphlets and speeches that, among other things, “attempted to expose the contradictions of antisemites who blamed Jews for capitalism while simultaneously characterising them as communists”. You’re made to understand how even deeply intelligent and politically attuned people were caught unawares by war and genocide

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From political journalist Daniel Finkelstein, an incredible memoir exploring both his mother and his father’s devastating experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during the Second World War.

This is a story of love and murder,” Daniel Finkelstein writes. “A story of how the great forces of history crashed down in a terrible wave on two happy families.” Those two sentences capture perfectly how a global war was made up of small personal struggles — each distinct, each important. Finkelstein’s story of his parents’ struggle captures the immensity and the intricacy of the Second World War. “I think it is time that I told the story of my mum and my dad,” he writes, “to describe what happened to them . . . and why it matters.” I learned so much from this book particularly about the experience of polish Jews and the Katyn Massacre.

The past isn’t dead when its everyday objects are with us

It is an important book and joins the contemporary Holocaust books of Philippe Sands and Jonathan Freedland. In fact there is a recording of a conversation between Daniel Finkelstein and Philippe Sands at the Hay Festival talking about the book this summer on Hayplayer. Today: as winter approaches in Siberia, Daniel's grandmother and father fight for survival. But the course of the war is about to shift, and with it their fortunes...