A heartbreaking and harrowing book which was very difficult to read at times. It is hard to imagine what horrors thousands of people suffered in concentration camps. This story will stay with me for a long time.

Simply heartbreaking.
No matter how many books I have read about the atrocities of Auschwitz, I still find it hard to comprehend what people had to deal with.
This book is a book that must be read.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin UK / Michael Joseph for my copy of this book. Gosh what a very powerful, harrowing read. I loved it, but despite having read many books about the Holocaust, I found myself frequently gasping in horror at some of the descriptions of the frankly unbelievable atrocities.
This book is beautifully written, very moving and should be read by everyone. It is vitally important that this most terrible part of history is kept alive, even though reading about it is horrifying beyond words.
The story will stay with me forever.

Would you follow your father wherever he went? This book is a moving tribute to a son who won’t let his father go into a concentration camp on his own. You need to read this to find out the ending. A touching, heartbreaking true story, about lives that shouldn’t be forgotten, in circumstances that should never be repeated.

*thank you to Netgalley, Jeremy Dronfield and Penguin UK for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*


3 stars.

Auschwitz stories are all such powerfully emotional stories that are sure to leave an imprint on your heart. This was no exception but I did feel that I didn't quite feel as connected with this story as I have with other War and Auschwitz stories. I'm not sure why exactly so I'm unable to explain it. I felt it was quite well written and it is one I'm glad I had been given the chance to read but I don't think I would reread it.

Harrowing insight into the horrors endured by the people at the time of the Holocaust. This book is a meticulously researched story of a Jewish family from Vienna who are torn apart after the German occupation. We follow each member of the family but focus on father and son Gustav and Fritz who end up in various concentration camps during the war. Their story is harrowing and shocking and one which must be kept alive to allow people today to recognise the threat of populism and extremism. My heart broke for the mother Tini, who arranged for her family to have a professional photograph taken as she realised their time as a family would soon be cut short. A copy of this photograph is shown in the book and I find this so poignant and sad.
What I like about this book is that we not only experience life in the camps in all its horror, but learn about how the Jewish people were persecuted long before the war even started and how the Nazi's insidious grip tightened almost unnoticed. Man's inhumanity to man and the ability to turn a blind eye to, and participate in, evil is terrifying.

I never thought this book would be easy to read and that was absolutely true. The holocaust can so easily be shuffled to one side as being ‘just to emotive for now’. I think we owe it to those who went through such degradation to keep aware of the depths to which man can sink!
This is a beautifully written and sobering account of a father and son. So poignant!!

An excellent read, though very harrowing. A true story based on the holocaust couldn’t be anything else, covering the lead up to the war, the early concentration camps and their developing horrors, the jewish Anschluss. This certainly gives you an all encompassing view of the WW2 years. The main protagonists are the father and son Gustav and Fritz Kleinmann who become virtual slaves to the Nazi regime, they experience unspeakable hardships and cruelties, whilst these atrocities are taking place.

Jeremy Dronfield has written a well researched account using the diaries of Gustav Kleinmann. This is one of those books everyone should read.

Thanks to Netgalley the author and publishers for ARC of this book.

There are a huge amount of books being published at the moment based on the stories of those who suffered in concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis. And while I strongly believe that these stories must be told, must be kept alive, there are problems with what seems to be a bit of a ‘trend’.
I think it’s important to always remember that these terrible things happened to real people. These stories are not fiction; these things actually happened, and, as such those involved should be treated with respect, dignity and compassion. Their stories shouldn’t be used for their shock factor or as material for that rather horrible human trait that has people slowing down when they see an accident ton the motorway. I do sometimes have the decidedly uncomfortable feeling that this is sometimes the case.
There is a very popular book out at the moment that is ‘based’ on a true story but has caused a great deal of pain to the relatives of the people involved. I’m not sure that anyone should be writing a story based on a real victim of the holocaust without the permission of their family. It leaves a rather nasty taste.
So I chose to read this book because it used the actual words and experiences of Gustav and Fritz and was written with the full permission of and in collaboration with the family.
And it is a book that should be read by everyone. It doesn’t hold back in detailing the cruelty of the regime, and neither should it. But this is, more than anything, a story of the extraordinary strength of human beings, their resilience, their ability to survive in the most dreadful of circumstances. We talk a lot about heroes these days, and it sometimes seems that not a lot is involved to become a hero, but in this book you’ll find multiple examples of people helping each other at great risk to themselves – real heroes.
It’s beautifully written too. There’s no sentimentality here, just crisp, clear, honest writing. The dialogue and excerpts from Gustav’s record of events means you become really involved in their story, and you never forget these were real people.
There’s a real rise in nasty politics at the moment, and the resurgence of the far right is particularly terrifying. Books like this serve as a reminder of how easy it is for things to turn ugly, and very quickly too. Gustav, Fritz and their family and friends didn’t realise how badly things were going until it was too late. It’s up to all of us to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Really sobering book. The descriptions of camp life and what the prisoners had to endure are heartbreaking. This is a must read for all.

Such a desperate story of a past that most of us read about in history books. We must never forget the depths of depravity that was inflicted on so many people. The endurance and positive spirit of the main characters serve as a reminder that strong will can sometimes prevail.
Always remember...

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin, and the author Jeremy Dronfield.
I have read many books covering the holocaust and WW2 in general, and this story is no less remarkable.
Jeremy Dronfield has put together an extremely emotive and heartbreaking account of Fritz and Gustav Kleinmann's stories, and the incredible luck and determination they used to survive their ordeal.
As with all other books on this subject, it is important that these are read so this dark element of our history can never be forgotten. 4 stars.

I must admit I approached this book with a degree of caution. Set against the backdrop of the Holocaust means this was never going to be light summer reading, but the tone of writing and the story it told proved far less emotionally draining than I'd expected. However, it still brings the crazy nightmare to life in a sensitive and interesting way.

We follow the story of Gustav and Fritz Kleinmann. Father and son. Both taken from their home in Vienna soon after Austria became part of Germany, the two men witnessed virtually the entire history of the Nazi concentration camps - including being amongst the prisoners who helped build the very infrastructure that contained and tortured them.

The book manages to find an incredibly balanced perspective - both incredibly personal to the two men, but within the context of the greater horrors of each camp that they were transferred to. The latter a painful reminder of how easily we forget the damning statistics of this period in history. These days it's very easy to think we all know how brutal these camps were, and we do, but it's easy for it all to become a data point. Reading this book, seeing facts laid out once more, with names attached, does add a focus to it all. We may not be surprised any more, but it remains hard not to be shocked.

Gustav and Fritz give us a superb individual perspective. Gustav kept a secret diary, Fritz has worked as a survivor guide in Auschwitz. Between them, they provide a very rich seam of information and incredible insight and perspective into the years they endured. And it is years. The two men were incredible survivors in a system that gave very little chance or hope of living beyond a few months. Yet live they did. They show the way fellow prisoners retained hope and humanity against the odds. The attempts at resistance and the fellowship. But also the brutal reality of survival. The spectrum of attitudes amongst the germans is clear too - from the brutal masochists who took pleasure from their work to the guards and civilians who would hold back or even help prisoners on occasion.

This book is a fascinating read, and while it can't totally avoid the emotional impact of the Holocaust, it's certainly one of the less draining reads on the subject. Don't hold back, read it, share it. Books like this are fundamental to our remembering these horrors. We need to retain this knowledge and these memories. They may not be pleasant, but they're important.

An excellent book - very difficult to read in places but the courage and strength of Gustav and Fritz shone through. I have visited Auschwitz, which was an incredibly moving and traumatic day, and it is difficult to imagine quite what horrors the people in these camps suffered but I think this book really does do justice to the true story of what took place. I would recommend this to everyone - it deserves to be read.

This isn't an easy book to read but one that you should definitely finish. It tells the story of father Gustav and son Fritz who are taken from their family at the start of the war for being Jewish. They start their journey in the concentration camp at Buchenwald and it is only them being together that sees them through the horrors of day to day life. When Gustav is chosen to transfer to Auschwitz - Fritz makes the unusual request to transfer with him knowing that this could be certain death. His request is granted and they make the gruelling journey and the nightmare continues but even worse than they had survived previously.

The story is taken from a diary that Gustav kept throughout their time within the camps and also interviews following their release. Most people are aware of the atrocities of the concentration camps and the holocaust as taught in schools and films such as Schindlers List - but this gives a more detailed account of what the prisoners endured over the years.

Thank you to Jeremy Dronfield and Netgalley for the opportunity of reading this book.

This book was so hard to read, and it's hard to review. I want to give it all the stars in the world because the story and subject matter are so heart-breaking. Even with all my reading about the holocaust and concentration camps, I still find it hard to imagine how humans coped for a single day in that awful world. And how other humans were capable of so much evil. But the book is not very well written. It is written as more of a 'storyalised' account and at times feels clunky. It's an important story and one that deserves telling, but I've read better written books in this genre.

A heartbreaking wonderful read. The subject matter is of course hard to read but a beautifully written story about the ties that bind, and a family who refuses to give up hope. This story will still with you long after the last page is turned.

This book will have you overwhelmed and unable to believe what you are reading
This is an unbelievable and personal of the horrific events experienced

Some people will always baulk at the idea of reading books about the Holocaust, or they will turn to one and leave it at that. "Schindler's List? That'll do me." I turn to them afresh several times a year and always learn new things. Every retelling has the same basis, but always a different detail. Here the actual story, and the detail, and so much else, make me think this is one of the best instances of the genre.

Story first – the tale of a father and son pair who first faced arrest the very morning after Kristallnacht, and went to Buchenwald, then Auschwitz, then a host of other, even worse places, forever trying to stick by each other, is absolutely incredible. But the first person testimony is there from the son, and the father managed (how is hardly explained, unfortunately) to keep one small notebook as a diary all the time in the camps, with a detail here and a poem there, to let him stay sane and to keep a galling memento. Their bond is the selling point here – when the junior man was able to stay relatively safe and healthy, by being a talented builder for the SS, he ordered that he be put on the transfer train to Auschwitz alongside his father instead.

Which brings us to the detail, for while we had a host of new little bits from the time in Buchenwald, we get a lot here about Auschwitz III – the Monowice (or Monowitz) area, and a much-ignored camp that the slaves had to build themselves, then use while they were building an industrial plant for IG Farben and their Nazi friends. So much here was new to me, and even if I don't call myself a scholar in this stuff, far from it, I was surprised by how much education I got from these pages I'd not had elsewhere.

I don't think the scholars, here for the 50pp of notes and suchlike, will love the novelistic style of the piece, but I couldn't really quibble. Yes, we get a silly dream flashback or two, but the revamp of the survivors' testimony, and diary, also allows the author to put so much context in – Jewish life in Vienna before the War, the growth of the camps, the different nationalities the inmates came from, the different nationalities the family concerned got to become. This adds so much friendly background to the book's events, and makes this a definitive read for so many curious to learn – or teach – this subject. Books like this prove that no one book on this subject will ever do.

This was well researched and interesting but I just could not read this. I had no will power to pick this up and found the writing not suited for me. I wish I loved it but it just wasn't for me at all.