Praise
“An exceptional adventure in Holocaust literature. Dina Gold combines investigative journalism with a keen sense of history to uncover a story everyone should read.”
—Marvin Kalb, Senior adviser to Pulitzer Center, Harvard Professor Emeritus, former Network Correspondent
“Sometimes life is stranger than fiction…an extraordinary story.”
—The Guardian
“If you’re interested in a good detective yarn lasting 150 years, Stolen Legacy won’t disappoint.”
—The Weekly Standard
“…this book is a grand example of dogged investigative journalism. Gold is never satisfied, and she never backs off.”
—Philip K. Jason, Jewish Book Council
“A compelling tale.”
—The Times, Writers’ Top Picks of 2015
“A granddaughter’s grit, her investigative journalist skills, serendipity, the German’s propensity for keeping records all combine to make a true historic adventure.”
—The Jewish Press
“Gold’s description of the veneer of legality that the Nazis used is important.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Her narrative is a personal one, similar to the book The Lady in Gold and the well-received movie Woman in Gold.”
—The Federal Lawyer
“Gripping… the remarkable story of the dogged, six-year campaign [Gold] mounted to obtain restitution from the German government for the Nazis’ appropriation of the magnificent, six-storey headquarters of her family’s renowned pre-war fur business… The story behind Dina Gold’s book has not ended.”
—The Jewish Chronicle
“… riveting, humane and politically important.”
—Standpoint
“One is full of admiration for the author’s persistence and courage in pursuing this complex claim…”
—Association of Jewish Refugees
“Gold’s measured, compassionate prose makes it clear that it’s not a tale of financial gain but one of justice and the survival of a persecuted people.”
—Kirkus
“Gold’s journalist background enables her to provide a rich review of a prominent family before World War 2, the building it owned, and the ordeal it took to get it back. Her detailed and extensive coverage of the trail leading to recovery comments on the suffering of the Jewish people under the hands of the Nazis. Stolen Legacy is another important story illuminating the extent of the theft of extraordinary property.”
—Los Angeles Paralegal Association
“This former BBC journalist’s passionate search for justice is a suspenseful confrontation with World War II history. A fascinating journey.”
—Anne-Marie O’Connor, national bestselling author, The Lady in Gold
“Dina Gold has written a crisp, page-turning nonfiction whodunit, and proves herself to be an unyielding sleuth in the pursuit of justice for her family. At the same time, it is meticulously researched journalism that provides a fresh perspective on history.”
—Nadine Epstein, Editor, Moment Magazine
“Her property becomes in a way the reader’s property and we follow with great interest and intensity her efforts to recover not only a material legacy but the entire history of her family.”
—Serge Klarsfeld, Lawyer and Nazi hunter
“Dina Gold tells the fascinating story of the uphill attempts of one family–her own – to regain the property that had been stolen from them by the Nazis. It is an amazing story.”
—Walter Laqueur, Historian, Political Commentator and Author
“Alongside The Woman in Gold now stands the building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 as a story of a legacy reclaimed by the tenacity of a woman determined to find justice for her relatives who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust.”
—J. Edward Wright, Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Arizona
“The Holocaust – – the project of exterminating Europe’s Jews — was an immense act of murder. But it was also an immense act of theft. The murder was, of course, the incomparably greater crime. The dead could never be brought back to life. The ash from crematoria was dumped into rivers or spread across fields; the bodies shot into ravines decomposed in Europe’s mutilated earth. Yet the stolen property—of those who were murdered and the minority who escaped or otherwise survived—was seized and passed on, first by the Nazis and then by the governments that followed, to new possessors, public and private. Some pretended to own that property; most knew its real origins; few were willing to part with it. This is the story of a single such property that, by indefatigable effort, was reclaimed, at least partly, two generations later. It’s the story of the theft. But it’s also, by inference, a small part of the story of the murder. And it’s the story of a rare act of belated and incomplete, but symbolically resonant, historical justice.”
—Walter Reich, Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior, and former Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
“Dina Gold digs deep into her history and leaves no stone unturned in her riveting account of the struggle for restitution of the property taken from her family by the Nazis. This is a meticulous and finely written account of her struggle to seek belated justice for her mother, with all the twists and turns one would expect from a fictional detective story — but it is all true.”
—E. Randol Schoenberg, Attorney (“Woman in Gold”)
“This is a great read — a true-life story which is dramatic and poignant, with an eventual happy outcome. It is above all the story of a family whose lives and personalities have skillfully been brought back to life, despite the best efforts of its Nazi persecutors. A history shared by so many families, many of whom were murdered with such efficiency that their story will never be told.”
—Jonathan Arkush, President, Board of Deputies of British Jews
“Dina Gold’s remarkable work gives hope that it is never too late. Her story is a testament to the human spirit.”
—Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, Special Advisor to the Secretary of State on Holocaust Issues
“Dina Gold’s remarkable book Stolen Legacy is a universal story. It is riveting reading. It focuses on one building and one family but its message is universal. The scope of the story is breathtaking. James Mitchener couldn’t have imagined a fictional book of the scope of this book. It starts with the twilight years of the gilded era in Germany. It traces the post-World War I economic distress that hit Germany and the rise of the Nazi and Communist parties, the ultimate seizure of power by the Nazis, the Holocaust, the early beginnings of Israel and Palestine, WWII, the Cold War, and Post-Unification Europe. This story is written in a compelling way and in a very factual and methodical way by one of the foremost investigative journalists that there is. Dina Gold is, in her own right, a remarkable person. The book is about a remarkable cast of characters. Her family is simply amazing, interesting, heroic, tragically flawed. It’s an incredible story and I would encourage everybody to read this.”
—Nicholas Allard, President and Dean, Brooklyn Law School