LOST CAFE SCHINDLER: One Family, Two Wars

Kurt Schindler was an impossible man. His daughter Meriel spent her adult life trying to keep him at bay. Kurt had made extravagant claims about their family history. Were they really related to Franz Kafka and Oscar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame? Or Hitler's Jewish doctor - Dr Bloch who treated Hitler's mother dying of breast cancer? What really happened on Kristallnacht, the night that Nazis beat Kurt's father half to death and ransacked the family home? Starting with photos and papers found in Kurt's isolated cottage, Meriel reconnected family members scattered by feuding and war and discovers relatives like Alma the wife of Gustav Mahler and connections to Kafka. She pieced together an extraordinary story taking in two centuries, two world wars and a family business: the famous Café Schindler. Launched in 1922 as an antidote to the horrors of the First World War, this grand café became the whirling social centre of Innsbruck. And then the Nazis arrived. Famous for its pastries, home-distilled liquors, live entertainment, and hospitality, the restaurant attracted Austrians from all walks of life. But as conditions became untenable for Jews in Austria during the Nazi era, the Schindlers were forced to leave, and their café was expropriated. Meriel reconstructs the colour and vibrancy of life in prewar Innsbruck against the majestic backdrop of the Austrian Alps, as well as the creeping menace and, finally, terror of the Nazi occupation. Ultimately, the book is a story of tragic loss - several relatives disappeared in Terezín and Auschwitz - but also one of reclamation and reconciliation. Through the story of the Café Schindler and the threads that spool out from it, this moving book weaves together memoir, family history and an untold story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It explores the restorative power of writing, and offers readers a profound reflection on memory, truth, trauma and the importance of cake. "Through the history of one family, the entire history of the Holocaust and the struggle to rebuild after the Holocaust unfolds..." Remainder mark, many illus. 408 pages.