Title: The Journey of Alfred Goldsteen’s Family: From Promising Lives to the Holocaust
Author: George H. Goldsteen
Publisher: PartridgeSingapore
ISBN: 1543769152
Pages: 224
Genre: Non-Fiction/ Biography & Autobiography
Reviewed by: David Allen

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In this masterfully researched memoir, George H. Goldsteen looks back upon a long life; grieves his murdered extended family; and reflects on a tortured century. The book is based on the extensive journals kept during WW II by the author’s mother and uncle and upon interviews he recorded with them.

The Journey of Alfred Goldsteen’s Family: From Promising Lives to the
Holocaust roundly succeeds – and hits us where we live – on several levels. First and foremost, it is the tragedy of a displaced and violated people. In Holland, Anne Frank and family were not the only victims of the Nazis – there were others. Like the Franks, and many other middle-class Jews, the Goldsteen family prospered in the Netherlands until that country fell.

At the same time, the book is a remarkable and intimate (because personalized) capsule of 20th century history. It’s all here: read about the fall of Holland. Read about the absurdly rising prices (3 liters of cooking oil going for the equivalent of $700); read about the laws against the Jews. The author has done his homework. Goldsteen travelled far and wide to unearth photographs and documents showing his living, breathing family.

We get to meet, almost in the flesh, Goldsteen’s parents, grandmother, and his uncle, along with other extended family. George H. Goldsteen depicts the shattered life arcs of family members (95 murdered by Nazis) with love and reverence.The book also depicts the spiritual progress of the author – and of the century.

Goldsteen’s personal solution to the dilemma of evil is to reach for God: he is an observant Jew. The author copes with the miasma of fractured history with an on-point (always scholarly rant) on the once beautiful and flowing lives of his forebears. Goldsteen amplifies this intimate and compelling family history with historical documents that are truly eye-opening, viz., ‘Appendix A: German Nazi Laws Decreed against Jews in the Netherlands, 1940 -1945’; ‘Appendix B: Letters Alfred Sent to Tine from the Transit Camp at Westerbork in 1944; and ‘Appendix E: Partial List of Members of the Goldsteen Family Murdered by Nazis’. And so on and so forth.

The book is beautifully illustrated and researched; it is a grand testament to the lives of those swept beyond the pale of history by scapegoating, the madness of crowds, and fascism.