Customer Reviews
The world they thought they were living in - By: Jeremy Walton, 07 May 2008 
I saw this titlein the window of a remaindered bookshop a few days before going to Vienna with my family. I bought it without paying much attention to what it was about, but thinking it would make a nice accompaniment to the trip. It's an excellent, deeply moving story. Beginning with his great-grandfather, who was born when Metternich ruled Austria, Clare deftly charts the progress of his family, delineating their loves, quarrels, quirks & interests, up until the point where he & his parents had to flee Vienna following the Anschluss of 1938. This brings the narrative to a climax, with one of his mother's friends sadly asking "What world did we think we were living in?"
Clare describes Austria's struggle to remain independent from Germany, & the incredible speed at which anti-semitism rose to the surface following the country's capitulation (when, literally, a single day meant the difference between Jewish families being able to escape with most of their possessions & their having to remain, only to be stripped of their jobs & all that they owned). He finds that the abuse of the Jews was - at least initially - adopted much more enthusiasticallyin Austria thanin Germany, although he also describes brave individualsin both countries who refused to go along with the tide. And his account of the end of his parents (who diedin Auschwitz) & his uncle (who survived the war, but was irredeemably broken by it) is heartbreaking. Reading this bookin Vienna, while walking through the streets mentionedin the narrative, made the events it describes even more vivid, even though it had the effect of turning the friendly, elegant city of the present day into a shadowy backdrop for this sinister tragedy.
A truly tragic story - By: Darren Simons, 09 Sep 2004 This is one of the most moving book I have ever read on the subject of the Holocaust & the treatment of Jews that led up to it. Writtenin the first person, this book describes how an assimilated Jewish family (Klaar) saw the rise of Nazism firstly restrict & then completely destroy their family.
Much of the book tells of the family history which is a key aspect when following his story. George Clare's description of ardent anti-semitismin Austria is particularly shocking but perhaps most significant of all is his very honest response (as an assimilated Jew) to what was happening around him. . At the time of the Anschluss the author was 17 years old - the book somewhat splits itself into two sections... his childhood & then adulthood coupled with anti-semitism.
It is wonderfully written & I cannot recommend this book enough.
A truly tragic story - By: Darren Simons, 30 Aug 2004 This is one of the most moving book I have ever read on the subject of the Holocaust & the treatment of Jews that led up to it. Writtenin the first person, this book describes how an assimilated Jewish family (Klaar) saw the rise of Nazism firstly restrict & then completely destroy their family.
Much of the book tells of the family history which is a key aspect when following his story. George Clare's description of ardent anti-semitismin Austria is particularly shocking but perhaps most significant of all is his very honest response (as an assimilated Jew) to what was happening around him. . At the time of the Anschluss the author was 17 years old - the book somewhat splits itself into two sections... his childhood & then adulthood coupled with anti-semitism.
It is wonderfully written & I cannot recommend this book enough.
moving account of the destruction of a family and a country - By: Dr. Sn Cottam, 22 Sep 2002 This is a very necessary book for anyone who would understand the effects of Nazi racial politics on individuals.
In clear & direct, but extremely moving prose, George Clare describes his family's services to Austria over the years (includingin the Austro-Hungarian army) & his own early lifein Vienna as a member of an assimilated Jewish family. But behind his idyllic early life is the growing menance of German & Austrian Nazism. The sheer ordinariness of a childhood & adolescence with his universal experiences makes a dramatic contrast with the extraordinary fate that overtakes the Klaars. George escapes to ultimately join the British Army but his parents & other members of his family are deported to be murderedin extermination campsin Poland. At the end of the book, George returns to France, many years later, to piece together his parents' last months of peace & their eventual terrible fate. On the way, Clare explains clearly the growth of Nazismin Austria & how Hitler was able to bully his native land into union with the German Reich.
Superbly written, this is a heartbreaking account of how one family's fate encapsulatesin microcosm the destruction of a way of life, a culture, a people & an entire country.
