In February 1938 Georg Klaar, a Jewish lad of seventeen, went to his first ball in Vienna, staying until the band’s last waltz. A month later came the Anschluss. The ensuing years brought chaos and tragedy to his family; he became George Clare, serving in the British army. This is a marvellous memoir of his early life, and what happened next, in a handsome clothbound edition from Slightly Foxed. It was also “a key book for the writing of Leopoldstadt”, says Tom Stoppard.
