‘Over the years my identity resolved itself. I realised there were three sides to me: Jewish, European and Australian. I was tricultural.’
Nash brings this multi-faceted description of himself to his approach to his memoir, Escape from Berlin. The first part of the book is the story of the escape of Nash’s parents from Nazi Germany. Their story goes on to tell of their lives with Nash, their only child, in Shanghai, and the family’s eventual settlement in Australia. Then the narrative becomes increasingly focused on Nash as he reveals more of himself through his descriptions of uncovering the history of his ancestors and a number of related families.
This interest in probing the past borders on the obsessional and results in meticulously detailed research into several family trees. Nash explains what motivates him: ‘My two paternal grandparents and my maternal grandmother and over forty close family members perished … Only three of my close family survived Hitler’s regime.’
But as a result of Nash’s investigations, many who died in the Holocaust are remembered and their relationships lovingly recorded. Nash further befriends distant relatives and helps them to find out what happened to their loved ones at the hands of the Nazis. He glories in the survivors and mourns those so tragically lost. Nash also mentions, with justifiable pride, the success of his children in founding Booktopia.
Read the review by Erich Mayer on the ArtsHub.