A memoir of Jonathan Lichtenstein’s difficult relationship with his father, Hans, who was a successful doctor in Wales, but had come to Britain on one of the Kindertransport in 1939 at the age of eleven.
For me, this was an emotionally hard book, as I found Jonathan a difficult person to emphasise with. However, there is trauma, and second generation trauma from survivor’s trauma, and although slow, the book does come together so that I appreciated it.
There might be perceived to be a failed appeal to Sebald, not in the writing, but in the use of black and white photos, and of course the subject matter. But although disturbing, this is a more straightforward story of individual hurt, not a description of a nation’s attempt to not remember the trauma done by it, and to it.
This may all sound a pretty half hearted appreciation, but these are damaged people and it takes me time to understand that damage, not just read about it. And Lichtenstein, however unsympathetically he depicts himself (he’s not a monster, just ... unsympathetic), did help me better understand the damage traumatic events inflict down the generations. ( )

A great trauma like the Holocaust does not just the people who are caught up in the horror as it is happening, it also affects family members who were not caught up in the nightmare personally. In this book, the author travels with his father back to Berlin to visit places from his youth, before he was sent to England as part of the Kindertransport.

Lichtenstein has been traumatized his whole life imagining the events of his father’s life that his father refused to talk about. One understands the father’s silence, but the effect it had on his son was devastating. Traveling back to Germany, his father, now in his eighties, gradually opens up about his life healing the rift between them.

This is one of the saddest books I’ve read in a long time. ( )