Why read Leopoldstadt?

Book cover of Leopoldstadt

Book description

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Leopoldstadt was the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna. But Hermann Merz, a manufacturer and baptised Jew married to Catholic Gretl, has moved up in the world. Gathered in the Merz apartment in a fashionable part of the city, Hermann's extended family are…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Leopoldstadt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Carroll Pursell

Author

Much has been written about the Holocaust but enough can never be said. Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937 to a non-observant Jewish family forced to flee the Nazi terror.

In his play Leopoldstadt Stoppard follows the history of a family living in that Jewish suburb of Vienna, from the turn of the 20th century to today. The story of the prejudice and restrictions they experienced, as well as the hopes they had of transcending them through business success and assimilation, are heartbreaking. A friend of mine came from such a family and from his recollections I know…

From Carroll's 3 favorite reads in 2023.