House Of Glass
The Story And Secrets Of A Twentieth- Century Jewish Family
In this fascinating book, Guardian writer Hadley Freeman shares the life stories of her maternal grandmother Sala Glahs and her three brothers Jehuda, Jakob and Sender. The siblings flee the pogroms of their home in Poland, carving out new lives in Paris as Sara, Henri, Jacques and Alex Glass. But antisemitism is not so easy to elude, and the Second World War changes everything. Sara is browbeaten into fleeing again, to an unfulfilling marriage in the USA; Henri, the inventor of a microfilming machine used to preserve vital plans and records, and Alex, a fashion designer, experience countless narrow
escapes; and Jacques, who keeps his faith in the government of Vichy France, is deported and killed in Auschwitz. Freeman traces the survivors through to their deaths in the late 20th century, simultaneously revealing her own journey through her family’s hidden past, sifting through oral history, Alex’s self-mythologising memoir, family folklore, mysterious snapshots, newspaper reports, passenger lists and other records (there are extensive endnotes). She also explores hard questions of immigration and assimilation, and reminds us how easily populism leads to nationalism and racism.
Marshalling a huge amount of material with the skill of an expert journalist and the passion of a loving granddaughter, the result is a triumph of family history writing.