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‘An extraordinary family tale of survival’ Sunday Times
Jonathan Dean’s great-grandfather, David Schapira, fled the Russian threat in Ukraine for Vienna in 1914. Blinded in the First World War, he survived to find love and start a family, only to be sent to a concentration camp during the next war. David’s son, Heinz, was also a refugee. In 1939, aged 16, he embarked on a nail-biting journey to London, to escape his fate as an Austrian Jew.
Drawing on David’s memoir and Heinz’s wartime diaries, Dean visits the places that changed the course of his family tree – Vienna, Cologne, Ukraine – where he finds history repeating itself and meets a new wave of people leaving loved ones for an uncertain future.
I Must Belong Somewhere is an unforgettable family tale of exile and survival, and a powerful meditation on what it means to be a refugee today.
Jonathan Dean’s great-grandfather, David Schapira, fled the Russian threat in Ukraine for Vienna in 1914. Blinded in the First World War, he survived to find love and start a family, only to be sent to a concentration camp during the next war. David’s son, Heinz, was also a refugee. In 1939, aged 16, he embarked on a nail-biting journey to London, to escape his fate as an Austrian Jew.
Drawing on David’s memoir and Heinz’s wartime diaries, Dean visits the places that changed the course of his family tree – Vienna, Cologne, Ukraine – where he finds history repeating itself and meets a new wave of people leaving loved ones for an uncertain future.
I Must Belong Somewhere is an unforgettable family tale of exile and survival, and a powerful meditation on what it means to be a refugee today.
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Reviews
Jonathan Dean's remarkable family saga would make the producers of Who Do You Think You Are? weak at the knees.
Humane and curious... an admirable family memoir.
Against the shocking news stories of the last couple of years, Jonathan Dean's very human take on the journey of a refugee has fresh resonance. Examining the lives caught in the crossfire as Europe twice fragmented in world war makes this a must read now.
Get a copy for your Brexit-voting uncle.
He explores complex subjects accessibly, and his book is all the more powerful for it.