Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna by Peter Singer; The Frank Family That Survived by Gordon F Sander - review by David Cesarani

David Cesarani

Knowing When To Run

Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna

By

Granta Books 254pp £15.99

The Frank Family That Survived

By

Hutchinson 298pp £17.99
 

THESE BOOKS BELONG to a sub-genre of 'Holocaust literature' in which the descendants of refugees or survivors ruminate on the experience of their forebears and its trans-generational effect. But are all stories of survival automatically interesting? Conversely, are the humdrum lives of people who fell victim to a monstrous regime elevated by the awful circumstances of their fate?

Peter Singer, one of the world's leading moral philosophers, pieced together his grandfather's story with the hope that by reconstructing a life that the Nazis obliterated he could repair some of the damage they inflicted. He admits that he was also curious to find out if any 'parallels' existed between

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