{"title":"Roman Frister","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"impossible-love-book-roman-frister-9780297645917","title":"Impossible Love","description":"Some years ago Roman Frister came across an old suitcase in a Tel Aviv flea market; it contained documents and photos pertaining to several generations of the Levy family - Jews living in Prussia from around the middle of the 19th century up until the beginning of the Second World War. He managed to trace some of the descendants and with their help has written their history - a detailed and involving narrative set against the turbulent backdrop of Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a touching and fascinating portrait of the changing fortunes of one family which exemplified the Jewish experience at the time. We follow them through the hard times and the happier ones, in business, and in their personal lives. This predominantly blond and blue-eyed family who were unstintingly patriotic were constantly victimised purely on account of their religion. As they struggle for acceptance against all the odds, the inevitable and familiar course of German history creeps up on them. It is miraculous that the ten members of the youngest generation all managed to escape and are to this day scattered throughout Israel, England and America. Like THE CAP this is a very beautifully written and meticulously structured book. As history is interwoven with Frister's interpretation of the Levy family's experiences, this intellectually engaging book - in truth a historical document - reads like an epic novel.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49513930588433,"sku":"GOR002652369","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49609824239889,"sku":"GOR011402180","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49621539356945,"sku":"GOR003739978","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0297645919.jpg?v=1751427958"},{"product_id":"cap-or-the-price-of-a-life-book-roman-frister-9780753810965","title":"The Cap, or The Price of a Life","description":"In this biography, Roman Frister tells the story of his metamorphosis: from happy child to merciless concentration camp prisoner, from branded captive to passionate lover and bohemian, determined never again to let control of his life slip from his hands.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516785729809,"sku":"GOR001786611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51552122863889,"sku":"GOR001820351","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0753810964.jpg?v=1751361408"},{"product_id":"cap-book-roman-frister-9780297841227","title":"The Cap","description":"Roman Frister was born into a wealthy, educated, cultured (Jewish) Polish family - his future was assured, until war broke out in 1939.  This is his unusual autobiography, which not only tells of his horrifying experiences in Mauthausen, but also continues his life story beyond 1945, in a way which few similar books have done.  The seminal experience of life in a death camp serves as the fulcrum upon which his whole life (and thus his narrative) is balanced, and in a poignant and extraordinary book he shows how it has coloured (both directly and indirectly) his entire existence.  He and his parents manage to avoid arrest for 3 years, hiding in the houses of both generous friends and strangers, but they are finally caught.  His mother is beaten to death right in front of him in an interrogation room, and his father dies of TB in the camp. At the time of liberation he weighed only 37 kilos: he had survived, but at what price?  His examination of the whole concept of morals within the amo ral world of the concentration camps is surprisingly frank, and he is uncompromisingly honest about what it took to ensure his survival in a world where one life is as dispensable as the next. His life beyond Mauthausen has been a rollercoaster of disaffection and disillusionment.  He tried to resettle in his native Poland, but had to leave because of the racism. His unsparing narrative is again achingly honest about this and many other aspects of his life - not least his turbulent emotional life with its string of failed relationships.  This is a powerful and important addition to the Holocaust literary genre, which will engender both horror and sympathy in any reader.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49538831548689,"sku":"GOR003861150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51187312394513,"sku":"GOR014194550","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51327815254289,"sku":"CIN029784122XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/029784122X.jpg?v=1751133583"},{"product_id":"impossible-love-book-roman-frister-9780753817063","title":"Impossible Love","description":"'I have invented nothing. Reality turns out to be more fascinating and yet also more terrible than any product of the imagination.' In an old cardboard suitcase found in a flea market in Jaffa, Roman Frister discovered the scraps of paper that were to form the basis of this remarkable history. Using everything from upholsterers' bills to personal letters, he reconstructs the story of the Levy family, who struggled to become one of the richest and most respected Jewish families in Pomerania, Prussia, but whose fortunes were to turn to dust in Nazi Germany. The story of the Levy family reads like an epic novel, but the events that shaped their lives were all too real for the generations of Jews who made a home in Prussia, then Germany. Yet as the power of the German Reich grew, so did the impossible tensions between the love of their homeland and their Jewish identity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49549181092113,"sku":"GOR002525652","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0753817063.jpg?v=1750914119"},{"product_id":"cap-book-roman-frister-9780802137623","title":"The Cap","description":"Uncompromisingly frank, both brutal and beautifully written (The Boston Globe), The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings. Roman Frister's memoir of his life before, during, and after his imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps sparked enormous controversy and became an international best-seller. With bone-chilling candor, Frister illustrates how the impulse to live unhinges our comfortable notions of morality, blurring the boundary between victim and oppressor and leaving absolutely no room for martyrdom. By the time Roman Frister was sixteen, he had watched his mother murdered by an S officer and he had waited for his father to expire, eager to retrieve a hidden half loaf of bread from beneath the dying man's cot. When confronted with certain death, he placed another inmate in harm's way to save himself. Frister's resilience and instinct for self-preservation -- developed in the camps -- become the source of his life's successes and failures. Chilling and unsentimental, The Cap is a rare and unadorned self-portrait of a man willing to show all of his scars. Reflected in stark relief are the indelible wounds of all twentieth-century European Jews. An exceptional and groundbreaking testimony, Roman Frister's gut-wrenching memoir is a must-read. -- Kirkus Reviews","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49570501067025,"sku":"GOR005820017","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50365274980625,"sku":"CIN0802137628G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007265833233,"sku":"NIN9780802137623","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51330635301137,"sku":"CIN0802137628A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52527074115857,"sku":"GOR009799751","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53370764230929,"sku":"CIN0802137628VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802137628.jpg?v=1751329253"},{"product_id":"israel-book-roman-frister-9780070224650","title":"Israel","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50343883735313,"sku":"CIN007022465XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/007022465X.jpg?v=1750972059"},{"product_id":"cap-book-roman-frister-9780802116598","title":"The Cap","description":"Uncompromisingly frank, both brutal and beautifully written (The Boston Globe), The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings. 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Reflected in stark relief are the indelible wounds of all twentieth-century European Jews. An exceptional and groundbreaking testimony, Roman Frister's gut-wrenching memoir is a must-read. -- Kirkus Reviews","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50412589121809,"sku":"CIN0802116590VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51720647442705,"sku":"CIN0802116590G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802116590.jpg?v=1750849560"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-roman-frister.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}