Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival

By: Daniel Finkelstein

Narrated by: Daniel Finkelstein

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

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)

fantastic

A fantastic story told with passion. I would have live for it to be longer

Amazing book! Touching

One of the most amazing books I’ve listened to lately! Very very recommended. What an interesting family story during such an awful time! We need not forget

A compelling narrative of two families that survived the horrors of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia.

This is a story that is tragic yet gives one hope. A story of family and love that survived unimaginable hardships.
Once I started to listen I was unable to stop. The author, the grandson and son of the protagonists, narrates their survival against a historical backdrop of major events of WWII.