Caroline Moorehead
In Search of Frère Jakob
House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
By Hadley Freeman
Fourth Estate 448pp £16.99
When the author and journalist Hadley Freeman was five, her father brought her to France from the USA to meet her European relations. These were the uncles, aunts, cousins and a grandmother, all of them Jewish, who had fled Poland in the wake of the First World War as anti-Semitism spread across eastern Europe and for the most part made Paris their home. Her grandmother, in particular, struck Freeman as deeply, uncomfortably sad. Something lodged in her mind.
Clearing out her grandmother’s cupboards after her death some two decades later, she found tucked at the back of one of them a shoebox filled with photographs, notes, drawings, telegrams and newspaper clippings. The discovery sent her rummaging through the past in an attempt to trace the history of a family whose odyssey was never discussed or alluded to. But this is more than the tale of one family. For, alongside her relations’ often painful stories, Freeman explores the rise and spread of anti-Semitism and xenophobia across modern Europe.
The Glahs family – who renamed themselves Glass and took on French first names – came from the market town of Chrzanów, in what before 1914 was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three brothers, Jakob, Jehuda and Sender, and their sister, Sala, were thirteen, twelve, eight and four
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'