They Were Good Germans Once: A Memoir: My Jewish Émigré Family

"A thoughtful, notable addition to the literature of the Holocaust . . . a poignant memoir." --Kirkus Reviews

In They Were Good Germans Once, author and biographer Evelyn Toynton speaks to a universal immigrant family experience -- some embrace a new life, some forge a compromise between their new home and old traditions, while others never fully find their way.

Through her series of essays, Toynton remembers her own relatives, some of whom left Germany as soon as Hitler came to power, others only escaping much later.

Her family lost not only their native homeland and their sense of identity but many of the people they loved. Yet each found ways to give meaning to their lives, whether in their own small circles or in the world at large.


Author: Evelyn Toynton
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 05/14/2024
Pages: 170
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.60w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781953002389

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 04/15/2024

About the Author
Toynton, Evelyn: - Evelyn Toynton is the author of three novels--Modern Art (published by Delphinium Books, chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), The Oriental Wife, and Inheritance--as well as a short biography of Jackson Pollock for Yale University Press's Icons of America series. Among the journals to which she has contributed are The London Review of Books, Harpers, The Atlantic, the TLS, The New York Times Book Review, The Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, and numerous anthologies. For the past twenty-five years, she has lived in England, on the North Norfolk coast.