Author(s): Simon May

History | Politics | Germany | Western Europe | Jewish History

'A lyrical, fascinating, important book. More than just a family story, it is an essay on belonging, denying, pretending, self-deception and, at least for the main characters, survival.' Literary Review'

Simon May's remarkable How to Be a Refugee is a memoir of family secrets with a ruminative twist, one that's more interested in what we keep from ourselves than the ones we conceal from others.' Irish Times

The most familiar fate of Jews living in Hitler's Germany is either emigration or deportation to concentration camps. But there was another, much rarer, side to Jewish life at that time: denial of your origin to the point where you manage to erase almost all consciousness of it. You refuse to believe that you are Jewish.How to Be a Refugee is Simon May's gripping account of how three sisters - his mother and his two aunts - grappled with what they felt to be a lethal heritage. Their very different trajectories included conversion to Catholicism, marriage into the German aristocracy, securing 'Aryan' status with high-ranking help from inside Hitler's regime, and engagement to a card-carrying Nazi. Even after his mother fled to London from Nazi Germany and Hitler had been defeated, her instinct for self-concealment didn't abate. Following the early death of his father, also a German Jewish refugee, May was raised a Catholic and forbidden to identify as Jewish or German or British. In the face of these banned inheritances, May embarks on a quest to uncover the lives of the three sisters as well as the secrets of a grandfather he never knew. His haunting story forcefully illuminates questions of belonging and home - questions that continue to press in on us today.

Review: A poignant tale of three sisters who buried their Jewish roots to survive in a hostile world. -- Neil Fisher * The Times *
In this engrossing and poignant memoir, philosophy professor and author Simon May examines the roots of his confused sense of identity and provides a new perspective on some of the 20th century's darkest days . . . A fascinating, moving and troubling read. -- Dan Brotzel * Irish News *
A passionate and eloquent account of a lost world of German Jews, cosmopolitan, sophisticated and cultured - and, so often, assimilated. -- Jenni Frazer * Jewish Chronicle *
The paradoxes of identity so brilliantly explored in this memoir are intriguing and absurd, as well as tragic. -- Jane O'Grady * Oldie *
In this engrossing and poignant memoir, philosophy professor and author Simon May examines the roots of his confused sense of identity and provides a new perspective on some of the 20th-century's darkest days . . . a fascinating, moving and troubling read. * Bristol Post *

Author Biography: Simon May was born in London, the son of a violinist and a brush manufacturer. Visiting professor of philosophy at King's College London, his books include Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion; Love: A History; Nietzsche's Ethics and his War on 'Morality'; The Power of Cute; How to Be a Refugee and Thinking Aloud, a collection of his own aphorisms. His work has been translated into ten languages and regularly features in major newspapers worldwide. For many years he has intended to move 'back' to Berlin, but has yet to do so.