Villa Russo

The book focuses on a villa in Wernigerode from the late19th century, its builders, owners and inhabitants. It offersa view of over 120 years of German history: the pride ofan entrepreneur, the success of the industrial production ofHarz cheese, and its abrupt end with the seizure of power ofthe National Socialists in the 1930s. The villa's Jewish owners,Benno and Clara Russo, are terrorised, deported and violentlykilled in a concentration camp, while a local Nazi takespossession of the house.Under East-German rule the villa became a vocational schoolfor children with special needs.With German unification, the ownership question arose anew.The Russo descendants offered to give the school and factorybuildings to the municipality provided it stayed as a school,but this was blocked by an opaque administrative act.This process exemplifies difficulties that occurred withunification. Political-historical facts and social-moral principleswere often disregarded. A fortunate turn meant that thevilla and outbuildings became a musical-artistic meeting place,radiating new life, while also serving as a memorial to theHolocaust.»A work of tremendous force and emotion, beautifully written,an important and original contribution to our understandingof the impact of malevolence on a family and its home. A bookfor our times, sadly.«Philippe Sands, QC, Director of the Centre on InternationalCourts and Tribunals at University College LondonDr. Julia Nelki, grandniece of the owners Benno and Clara Russo,describes in empathic detail this German-Jewish family history.