MICHAEL WOOD ON…
“History at its most affecting is the tale of a single life through time”
e are often told that the majority of history searches in archives, libraries and record offices, both in person and online, concern family history and genealogy. We all want to know about ourselves: where are we from? Who do we think we are? This fundamental human urge to know about our past is the theme of some of the best history books On one level this is a human rights lawyer’s compelling story of the development of the legal concepts of genocide and crimes against humanity. But at its root, it is the tale of a family devastated by the Holocaust, whose unanswered questions lie in a suitcase of documents and photographs left by grandma. It’s also the story of eastern European societies destroyed by conflicting nationalisms and by the horrors of Nazism.
