Uncle Otto's Puppet Theatre
A Jewish Family Saga
Description:... In this book Brigid Grauman tells the story of her father's family, who were Jewish. She starts with her great-grandfather Siegmund Flatter from whom cascades a cast of characters stretching from mid-19th century Moravia, now the Czech Republic, to Vienna, then France, the UK, Cuba, the US and Belgium, ending in the present day. She tells the story of strong characters from modest roots moving within one generation into positions of some importance in the larger cities of the day. What makes the story even more compelling is that Brigid has managed to place her family with ease into the events and thinking of the time--some with direct consequences for the individuals concerned. She has anchored them into the tale of Jewish assimilation and upward mobility of pre WW1, mainly in Vienna--to the inevitable tales of prejudice, loss and migration of WW2 and the subsequent search for new roots. She has had quite a bit of help. No less than seven relatives had written personal memoirs--not diaries, but "books with a narrative intention." They all survived WW2 and each tried, she says, "to make sense of their destiny and do so by recalling worlds which have disappeared. Together they form a remarkable gift from the past to explore the worlds my family had belonged to."
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