My Father's Roses (Ulverscroft) - Hardcover

Kohner, N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847825923 ISBN 13: 9781847825926

Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print Books Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

Nancy's father was not like the other fathers in their northern English town. Elegantly dressed after the Eastern European fashion, an impeccable violin player, and never without a rose in his lapel, her father's entire essence alluded to a hidden and haunting past. Delving into the endless boxes of letters and diaries her father carried with him when he fled Czechoslovakia in 1939, her father's past finally comes to life.There are times of joy--her grandparent's finding sanctuary in 1918 in a small town between Prague and the German border; their eldest son returning from the trenches of Verdune and Somme; the birth of their first grandchild; a growing family business. But there was also fear, as instability and danger was the permanent backdrop of their lives, and when Nazi Storm Troopers marched into Podersam, Nancy witness the disintegration of the family through their increasingly desperate letters.Some escape to England, others resort to suicide, while others make poignantly clear that this will be their last letter as they are marched toward Treblinka, in this intimate, heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting window into one family's heartache and legacy.

About this title

Review

[...] Kohler (who died in 2006) provides an evocative, moving but unsentimental book that captures the commonplace details of ordinary lives torn apart by the darkening cloud of world events.

Book Description

Like the story behind 'Suite Francaise', the author died shortly after completing this moving family memoir based on diaries and letters that her father brought out of Prague before the Holocaust.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847825923
• ISBN 13: 9781847825926
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 456