The problem with stories about the Holocaust is that they are told by the survivors

Daniel Finkelstein on the extraordinary coincidences (but not miracles) enabling the survival of his mum and dad from both Hitler and Stalin

Book titles can be misleading. Daniel Finkelstein’s new Holocaust family memoir has different titles for the UK and US. One is entitled HITLER, STALIN, MUM & DAD; the other TWO ROADS HOME. But both have the word “miraculous” in the subtitle: the UK version describing a “family memoir of miraculous survival”, the other about the “the miraculous survival of my family.”

And yet, when Finkelstein came on KEEN ON today, he seemed a little ambivalent about treating the dual stories of his mother and father’s astonishing survival as miraculous. Miracles are arbitrary manifestations of fate, but his family’s survival also has to do with education, social class and agency. So, yes, there were what he called “extraordinary coincidences” in the survival of Finkelstein’s family, but that’s the Hollywood ending to the story.

Finkelstein’s book is strongly recommended. As is the full interview with him below, especially for the brilliant joke told by mother, Mirjam, a Bergen-Belsen survivor, about Ronald Reagan’s visit to Bergen-Belsen in 1985. Enjoy.