At age 16, Laqueur ( Europe in Our Time , LJ 12/91; Stalin , LJ 10/15/90) fled Nazi Germany for Jerusalem, where he lived for several years on a kibbutz. After the war, he reported firsthand on the founding of Israel and the bloody siege of Jerusalem that followed. He knew everyone of note in the small state of Israel--Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Meir. In the 1950s and 1960s, as a journalist and historian, he rubbed shoulders with the statesmen and intellectuals of Europe. "In the world of which I have been part," he writes, "calm seas and still waters were rare.... My father and mother perished in World War II and I survived mainly because I was lucky.... I have lived to watch my Israeli granddaughter donning a gas mask." Laqueur, now a strategic researcher in Washington, D.C., is unwilling to spend time on searching his soul, but he has much of interest to say about the tumultuous world in which he has lived his eventful life. Recommended for general and academic libraries.
- David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Table of Contents

Preface XI

Introduction: Homecoming   1

Part One - A German Childhood

1 Childhood   23

2 Families of Yesteryear   39

3 School Under Hitler   59

4 Children at Play   77

5 1937: "Och, a Nasty Song"   87

6 1938: Farewell to Europe   111

Part Two - Young Man Adrift: Palestine in Peace and War

7 The Eve of war   161

8 Kibbutz Life   188

9 Jerusalem   213

10 Special Correspondent   229

11 The Siege   291

12 Looking Backward   318

13 Postwar Blues   334

Part Three - Grand Tour of Europe and Muscovy

14 Grand Tour of Europe   349

15 Discovering Muscovy   375

Epilogue   400

Index   405