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Book Review
No Fixed
Abode
A Jewish
Odyssey To
Africa
By Peter
Fraenkel
In No Fixed
Abode, Peter Fraenkel gives a vivid account of his childhood in
a middle-class Jewish family in Nazi Germany where he was born and
spent his early years until the family was forced to emigrate to the
then Northern Rhodesia in 1939 escaping the holocaust that followed.
The words and
actions of the Nazi stormtroopers are indelibly etched on Peter’s
memory and signaled the collapse of the comfortable life in which he
had been born in Breslau.
The book tells
of the family’s arrival in
Northern
Rhodesia,
of the hardships which the family faced. Peter’s father was a lawyer
and civil servant in Germany but in Northern Rhodesia, he had to eke
out a living as a dry cleaner whilst his mother sewed clothes,
eventually opening her own shop.
It tells of
the contrast between a persecuted Jew, an enemy alien in colonial
Northern Rhodesia, to re-assimilation into the privileged colonial
elite. Following an education in Northern and Southern Rhodesia,
Peter worked for the Northern Rhodesian and later, the Central
African Broadcasting Service. Here his pioneering work in
broadcasting, almost entirely in African languages and support for
racial equality connected him with his earlier life
 Peter
Fraenkel
left his broadcasting career in
Africa and
went to live in the UK where he pursued a successful career with the
BBC World Service, where he became the Controller of European
Services.
I am a bit of
a history freak, but am really only interested in three subjects –
the Russian Revolution, the Second World War and anything to do with
Zambian/Central African history so this book, covering two of the
three subjects, was right up my street. But even had it not covered
those subjects, it is still an easy read, written in an easy style.
It is a moving story of the Jewish Diaspora from persecution in
Europe
to success in
Africa and
Europe.
No Fixed
Abode, released on 10 March, is published by I B Tauris and is
available on the web and will be available in local bookshops in due
course. |
April 2005