The Tiger in the Attic: Memories of the Kindertransport and Growing Up English

I’ve read quite a few holocaust memoirs, and this is one of the most unusual in that the holocaust is barely mentioned. Milton and her older sister, Ruth, were part of the Kindertransport. They spent the war years with an upper class British family, the Harveys. Mr. Harvey was a prison administrator who was transferred a couple of times while Edith and Ruth were in their care, so they lived first in Swansea, then in Leeds, then in Dartmoor. Edith experienced her childhood as a typical British child, yet she was always conscious of being an outsider.

The author’s mother, a physician, was able to emigrate to the United States because, having been born in Alsace, she counted in the French quota rather than the German quota. However, she show more was unable to practice medicine in the US until years later, when she had passed the American board exam. Edith and Ruth joined her in the US about a year after the war ended. At the time of this memoir, Edith had returned to Karlsruhe, her city of birth, only once, where she was finally forced to confront the reality that she couldn’t bring herself to speak of. Edith and her husband visited the Jewish cemetery in Karlsruhe where her father had been buried a year or two before she left on the Kindertransport. The reality finally hit her as she stood in the cemetery wondering about the absence of recent burials:

Of course there were no recent interments: no one had died because almost no one had lived. show less

A sweet surprise of a memoir set, mostly, in England, where Edith Milton grew up. Milton was 7 years old in 1939 when she was shipped off by her parents, who were Jewish, who feared the coming nightmare. Free of any hint of trauma, marvelously funny and deft, this little book is honest in every aspect, especially in its admission of the sheer joy of being swept into a big, cheerful, loving and generous British family. Though the young girl will later question her identity and her history, she will do so with clear-eyed integrity. Milton has a novelist's eye for character, and an ear for ordinary speech. She is also unfailingly witty and sometimes outright hilarious. A small miracle.

The title of this book is misleading. They should have just said "Memories of Growing Up English" and left out the part about the Kindertransport. Although the author and her sister did arrive in England from Germany on the Kindertransport, they had a deeply ordinary childhood with an upper-middle-class English family, and the Holocaust is barely touched upon. Although this book is well-written (almost poetic) and good for conveying the atmosphere of everyday life in England during World War II, I hadn't been looking for a book about everyday life in England during World War II and I found it boring and barely finished it. It's a good enough book but not my cup of tea.

Tiger in the Attic was a great story told from the viewpoint of Edith Milton. Just eight years old, she travels with her sister Ruth from Karlsruhe to England as part of the Kindertransport shortly before the beginning of the war. There the two of them lived with the Harveys and their two daughters who were between Edith and Ruth in age.. There is not a lot about the Kindertransport here but rather a great deal about learning to be English and about everyday life in England during wartime. Meanwhile, some other members of their family, including their mother, had managed to make their way to the U.S. So, the last part of the book covered the girls' journey to New York after the war and the author's adjustment to still a third show more culture.

The story is entertainingly told and may be one of my best books of the year as well as a quick and easy read. Not a "just the facts" recitation but told as the memories would naturally surface with a digression here and there and a bit about how the adult Edith came to interpret her memories. She also carefully points out how unreliable some memories can be after so many decades.

Recommended. show less

I began thinking that this book would describe the "transport" but of course, that wouldn't even take a chapter. As I read further, I became more and more fascinated at the way Milton was able to look at herself and the persons in her life beyond the appearances all of us project.

Too long like most books but interesting from point of view of memory and what is and isn't recalled. Germany and the horrors of World War II lurk in the background throughout.

Kept my interest.