Thomas Harding (1) (1968–)

In 1927 Thomas Harding’s great-grandfather built a weekend cottage for his family on the shore of a lake in Groß Glienicke, on the western edge of Berlin. The Alexanders were able to enjoy the house for a few years before Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies made them emigrate to Britain. Another family, the Meisels, then acquired the place cheaply as “abandoned Jewish property”, but lost it again when it became part of the Soviet Zone and later the DDR. Two further families lived in the house during the DDR period, when it changed from dacha to permanent residence — but with the peculiarity that the Berlin Wall now ran through the back garden, cutting the house off from the lake.

Harding went to Berlin in 2013 to look for the now-abandoned house his relatives had talked about, and to research its history by talking to residents of Groß Glienicke, an exercise which culminated in a project to turn the house into a protected monument and eventually a museum of local history.

Harding uses a mixture of oral history and documents to chronicle the history of the house and the village from the 1890s, before the local landowner sold off portions of his estate for housing, right through to the campaign to restore the house. This is all quite engaging, particularly because Harding treats all the people who have lived in the house with equal respect and focuses on their experience of living there rather than allowing himself to be tempted into recriminations about strangers living in the house his family built for themselves. We get a lively — albeit somewhat arbitrary — slice of German social history through time, with quite a lot of interesting details.

The book is a little less successful when Harding is trying to fill us in on the bigger picture of German history to give a context to the events: inevitably, he has to condense and simplify, and he often ends up with a story that is lacking in nuance and precision. A lot of relevant information is banished to the (ridiculously long) endnotes, and Penguin make things worse by not allowing him to put references to the notes in the text: you have to guess which passages might have notes attached to them and which don’t.

Not bad on the whole, but I think there are much more interesting books about German history written by actual Germans (OK, Australians too…).… (more)

Anyone who reads British novels, knows the name of Lyons and the famous Lyons Tea and Corner Houses that were once ubiquitous in Great Britain. Now, however, the name has largely disappeared. What Happened? That’s what this book is all about.

The story starts in the early 800’s with Lehmann Gluckstein and his family escaping the pogroms in Eastern Europe and emigrating to the East End of London. There by dint of hard work, the family starts pulling themselves out of poverty by selling tobacco and then branching out into catering and
Restaurants.

For over a century J. Lyons was everywhere and their products were in every home. But times and tastes change and a new generation’s poor decisions brought the company to ruin. This is a fascinating story, not only of a family business, but also of England from the Victorian era up until today.… (more)

This book is a cross between literary journalism and memoir. Harding’s great-grandfather built a summerhouse on a lake in Germany, but when the Nazis began to threaten the existence of his Jewish family, they fled to England. Harding discovered the house still standing and decided to research the history of the house. By following the lives of five families who lived in the house, the reader witnesses a personal viewpoint of German history from the late 19th century through both world wars, East Germany and the wall which went right past the house property—as well as the eventual demolition of that wall. Will Harding be able to save the house through this endeavor? Read the book and find out.… (more)