... [a] revelatory, riveting, and deeply moving account of his family’s involvement in Germany’s recent history.

Now, having looked more deeply into that Germanness, the author is left with layers of ambiguities—“Kurt and Helen’s flight and exile, Maria and Elisabeth’s fate to be ‘rats in a trap,’ Niko’s service on two fronts.” In contemporary Berlin, where the Nazis’ victims are memorialized in the very pavement, Alexander Wolff exposes in his ancestors’ experiences the common thread. It is the barest, most basic definition of purpose in life, neither noble nor subhuman: survival..

... an event-filled biography and, along the way, a captivating case study in the challenges faced by refugees attempting to remake a life.

Ultimately the real energy of Endpapers comes not from Wolff’s impressive reconstruction of his father and grandfather’s biographies, but from the way he adds himself to the narrative, bringing us back to the present.

A knowledge of German will help the reader get through Endpapers, as German words and phrases are scattered throughout. Most of the time, author Alexander Wolff offers a translation when an unfamiliar term first appears. At other times, he uses German without providing the English equivalent, presumably assuming the words are so well known that no translation is required.

Stories of Kurt fleeing from Nazi-controlled France and Nico’s tour on the eastern front are engrossing.

Book lovers will find Kurt’s story especially interesting.

... poignant.