Author:Clara Kramer
On 21 July 1942 the Nazis took control of the small Polish town of Zolkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug bunker. Living in the house above and protecting them were the Becks.
Mr Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe. Nevertheless, life with Mr Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again.
Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.
Superlative memoir of survival ... Few wartime memoirs convey with such harrowing immediacy the evil of the Nazi genocide ... Her book is a model documentary
—— Daily TelegraphNot only a record of terrible deprivation but also a kind of unexpected nobility ... extraordinary
—— Margaret ForsterLucidly told with deeply etched personality sketches,thanks to the author's use of her teenage diary, now in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
—— Kirkus reviewsThis vividly detailed and taut narrative is a fitting tribute to the bravery of victims and righteous gentiles alike
—— Publishers WeeklyBrilliantly readable
—— Lancashire Evening PostWell-paced, a thoroughly polished, professional piece of work. A macabre family saga
—— A. N. Wilson , Evening StandardAn entertaining study of power and personality portrays the strutting absurdity and grotesque glamour of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe
—— Simon Sebag Montefiore , Financial TimesFascinating. Carter is a gifted storyteller and has written a very readable account
Carter's intelligent, entertainging and informative book folds dynastic and political narratives into a panoramic account of Europe's road to war
—— London Review of BooksIn her group biography of three monarchs, Carter has succeeded in painting their personalities in vivid colours...she brings an excellent biographer's eye for the telling detail...the great appeal of this book lies in it narration and comparative analysis of the life and personality of her imperial subjects...well-researched and expertly written...an engaging and remarkably even-handed portrayal
—— The Times Literary SupplementThat these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria
—— Zadie SmithMiranda Carter writes with lusty humour, has a fresh clarifying intelligence, and a sharp eye for telling details. This is traditional narrative history with a 21st-century zing. A real corker of a book
A highly original way of looking at the years that led up to 1914
—— Antonia Fraser , Sunday Telegraph Books of the YearCarter deftly interpolates history with psychobiography to provide a damning indictment of monarchy in all its forms
—— Will Self , New Statesmen Books of the YearA depiction of bloated power and outsize personalities in which Carter picks apart the strutting absurdity of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe
—— Financial Times Books of the YearTakes what should have been a daunting subject and through sheer wit and narrative élan turns it into engaging drama. Carter has a notable gift for characterisation
—— Jonathan Coe , Guardian Books of the Year
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