PositiveOn: Yorkshire Magazine (UK)Meriel Schindler’s precise and very well researched book effectively traces her family history from her great-grandfather’s time and is set to the backdrop of a Central Europe enduring the turbulent times of two world wars; very dramatically so for Jewish people who were to encounter a history of resentment and persecution ... quite an educational, yet gripping story and the sometimes grand history of the Café Schindler ... a comprehensive guide and insights into what life was like for entrepreneurial people during the decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire, its participation in the First World War, the growing prejudice towards and the persecution of Jewish people, Hitler’s ascendancy, Kristallnacht, the Second World War and its aftermath ... Overall this is a very readable, illuminating, informative and enjoyable book, though at times one might not be quite sure whether it was written and intended simply as a storyline or was meant to be something more academic in nature. In some ways it might also be seen to be twin-tracked, even perhaps multi-tracked in its approaches and in what it achieves ... It certainly succeeds in providing that ‘way in’ to the history and social circumstances of the times, from the 1850s to the present, and we gain a perspective on the two world wars from geographical and culturally different perspectives that reflect a genuine feel for the times portrayed.
