How to Be a Refugee by May, Simon -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title page Dedication page Contents Epigraph page Principal Characters List of illustrations Foreword Introduction: Death at the German Embassy PART I: A BERLIN IDYLL: 1910–1933

1. Blumeshof 12 2. ‘Musician must always look beautiful’ 3. Where Germans and Jews secretly met 4. Ernst’s conversion 5. ‘Get out of here immediately, you East-Asian monkey’ 6. The operation on Lenin 7. The hopeful case of Moritz Borchardt 8. Ernst’s death

PART II: THREE SISTERS, THREE DESTINIES: 1933–1945

9. Next stop: Catholicism 10. ‘Life is continually shedding something that wants to die’ 11. Great-uncle Helmut: priest, philosopher, boxer Ursel’s World: The Aryan Aristocrat in Hiding

12. From the Liedtkes to the aristocrats 13. Ursel becomes an Aryan 14. Ursel becomes a countess 15. The Gestapo comes calling

Ilse’s World: Fearless in Berlin

16. Dancing at Babelsberg 17. Ilse, Christabel, and the ‘submarines’ 18. The Rosenthals and their guest 19. How did Ilse do it?

Marianne’s World: An Immigrant in London

20. Stateless at the German Embassy 21. The past cannot be predicted 22. Czech mates 23. Grandmother Martha May 24. Saved by arrest

PART III: NEWLY CREATED WORLDS: 1945–1990

25. C & A to the rescue 26. Locked in the attic 27. Ilse returns to Berlin 28. Geri and Eva are shot 29. ‘I love shopping’ 30. Ilse’s Nazi flag business 31. Chaplain Sellars 32. Ilse in the parsonage 33. The Jewish altar server 34. The promised land of Switzerland 35. Central Europe in London 36. Hiding the crucifix 37. Banished to the car 38. The European Union as saviour

PART IV: THE PAST CANNOT BE RESTITUTED: 1990–

39. Love declaration to Germany 40. The blessings of procrastination 41. Did Great-uncle Theo have another life? 42. The Nazi and the Jewish woman 43. Just ask the Führer 44. The Jew and the ex-monk 45. The parrot and the bulldog 46. Lech Wałęsa, the ‘Jewish President of Poland’ 47. Finding Grandfather May 48. The Jewish cemetery of Trier 49. The survivor file 50. We have Saddam Hussein to thank 51. The file goes astray 52. Finding the heirs 53. Pip 54. The missing 1 per cent 55. The Aryanizers demand compensation from us 56. How to have a good war 57. ‘Progress!’ 58. The elusive share certificate 59. Restitution? No, thanks 60. Romeo in Bayreuth 61. Mother’s last ‘last visit’ to Berlin 62. Mother’s death – My ‘return’ to Germany begins 63. A devastating discovery 64. The woman and the dandy 65. A London club

Coda: Dinner at the German Embassy Acknowledgements Notes Sources About the Author Also by Simon May Plate Section Copyright page