Mischka's War by Sheila Fitzpatrick

Mischka's War Reviews

• 
  Marialyce (home from the Cayman's sadly)

  Written by a wife, whose background is that of being a Russian historian, about her husband , Mischka, a theoretical physicist, this was an interesting look into the life of a young man caught in war and his relationship with his mother, Olga.
  
  Mischka, escaping from Latvia to avoid serving in the Russian army, goes to Nazi Germany. Being part Jewish this might have been a death sentence yet Mischka was able to lead a life there while trying to complete his education. He was also present at the devastating bombing of Dresden as he and another roamed the city while bombs fell around them thus giving him an eye witness account to the carnage. In his travels he also was witness to the bodies of Jewish people murdered by the Nazis and these events seemed to be ever present in his mind's eye.
  
  In this biography is also the strong presence of Mischka's mother, Olga. She herself was a different woman, one of passion, mother to four sons, two of whom were eventually trapped behind the Iron Curtain never to be seen by her again. Her love for Mischka was strong and she always considered him her genius child. Their story is told mostly though their correspondence, diaries during the war torn years and Mischka's revelations to his wife about their relationship.
  
  Mischka and his mother eventually emigrate to America but their relationship seems to drift apart as the years go by. It was a sad telling of two lives played out against the backdrop of war and the life that a displaced person led after the war ended.
  
  For a look at what war looked like from a different point of view, not an American one, this biography told a story well. War is hell and its aftermath for those in its path is hell. However, the human spirit survives and goes on to lead a life that brings others and themselves some measure of happiness. It is evident that in this telling that Ms Fitzpatrick loved her husband and felt it so very important that his life story as well as Olga's be told.
  
  Thanks you to NetGalley and I.B. Taurus & Company, LTD for providing an advanced copy of this novel for an unbiased review.
• 
  Jennifer (JC-S)

  ‘This is a historian’s book, not a memoir, but it’s also a wife’s book about her husband.’
  
  In 1989, Sheila Fitzpatrick, an Australian historian, met Mischka Danos, a theoretical physicist originally from Latvia, on a plane. They met by chance, fell into conversation, then into love and married. They had ten years together: Mischka died in 1999.
  
  In this book, Ms Fitzpatrick pieces together Mischka’s life before she knew him, through diary entries, correspondence and recollections from others who knew him. It’s a way of remembering Mischka, of keeping him alive, of trying to understand his past. It also provides insights into the impact of World War II, on a family from the Baltic state of Latvia.
  
  In 1943, while skiing through the Latvian woods, Mischka Danos came across a pit filled with the bodies of Jews killed by the Germans. He was aged 22. Later, Mischka was to discover that he was part-Jewish. His father, Arpad, was a Hungarian Jew who had changed his name from Deutsch to Danos, around 1900. Did Mischka know this, I wondered, when he went on a student exchange to Germany to escape conscription into the Waffen-SS?
  
  Mischka narrowly escaped death in the fire-bombing of Dresden, became a Displaced Person in occupied Germany before finally being reunited with his mother Olga. Mischka became a member of the Heidelberg school of physics and then both he and Olga were resettled in the USA at the beginning of the 1950s. Around the biographical facts, Ms Fitpatrick has provided the detail which brings both Mischka and Olga to life and provides the reader with the context for the choices made and the decisions taken.
  
  Sheila Fitzpatrick is Professor of History at the University of Sydney and Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the University of Chicago. She has written several books about Soviet history, as well as two memoirs: ‘My Father’s Daughter’ (2010) and ‘A Spy in the Archives’ (2013). I’ve added these memoirs to my reading list.
  
  Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Melbourne University Publishing for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
  
  Jennifer Cameron-Smith
  
• 
  Sladana

  Fitzpatrick is one of my favorite authors! For me, in general, the idea of everyday historians to write history using letters, diaries, everyday objects, memories, etc is fascinating itself, as it is more convincing, more interesting to read and it throws the reader back to the actual historical time to re-live it! And Fitzpatrick is doing it remarkably amazingly (and it is a well know fact among modern-day academia). However, what is especially fascinating about this book is that now, when she is retired and has time to work on all kinds of projects, she chose to make an experiment and try to write objectively, as a historian, about the life of her late husband. And she did it! Hence, besides learning a lot about Latvian refugees, the history of the Baltic states, the processes of immigration during WWII, and many more, I also found it exciting to learn more about the process of writing this book. She explained it in detail at the end of the book! You can find there how did she conduct the interviews, how did she select the letters to analyze and many more. I really recommend going through it, you won't regret it! So much respect for this lady!!!! Thank you for your hard work!
• 
  Mandy

  History, memoir and biography all in one, Sheila Fitzpatrick’s exploration of the life of her Latvian husband Mischka Danos, who survived the ravages of WWII and managed to find refuge in the US, is a well-written and engaging account, a balanced mix of the personal and the historical. Based on diaries, correspondence and personal recollections, the story is an absorbing and moving one, and a gripping description of life in war-torn Europe.
• 
  D

  In the Winter of 1943, Mischka Danos made a gruesome discovery outside Riga - a pit filled with
  the bodies of Jews killed by the occupying Germans. In order to escape conscription to the Waffen-SS - the authors of such atrocities - Mischka volunteered to go on a student exchange to Germany. Whilst in Germany, he narrowly escaped death in the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden. Surviving Hitler's Reich, he became a DP in occupied Germany, where in 1951 he earned a PhD at the exceptional Heidelberg Physics Institute. In the 1950s Mischka was sponsored as an immigrant to the US by a Jewish survivor whom his mother, Olga, had saved during Riga's worst period of Jewish arrests. As refugee experiences go his was moderate. The author Sheila Fitzpatrick, whom he met and married Mischka forty years after these events, turns her skills as a historian and wry eye as a memoirist to telling the remarkable story of Mischka's odyssey and survival.
  
  The book is an inside view of this period from a different perspective and is well worth the read. Not literary or historical but a tender hybrid.
• 
  Margaret Sankey

  Fitzpatrick, a historian of Soviet Russia, met and married physicist Michael Danos in the 1990s, but only after his death pieced together the family records of his extraordinary experiences in WWII. Assimilated Hungarian Jews in Latvia, his family faced threats from both the Russian and German occupations of the Baltic (two of his sisters were taken off to gulags), and through luck and planning, he avoided conscription by the Latvian, Russian and German armies by volunteering for academic study in Germany, narrowly avoided being in the fire-bombing of Dresden, then survived displaced persons camps after the war.
• 
  Susan

  An extraordinarily brilliant book written by an (Australian) historian of Russia and Communism, as a memoir/history of her husband, Mischka, a Latvian (German, American eventually) physicist. This book is in part so fascinating as he was allowed (and chose) to go to German to study physics in early 1940's - when most smart people were avoiding Germany. And in the midst of the War he was able o study physics. There is a lot to learn in this book - about his experiences growing up in Latvia, his relationship with his family, his lack of awareness that his father was half-Jewish - which he seems genuinely not to have known. What an interesting well written book!
• 
  Michelle Kidwell

  
  Mischka's War
  
  A European Odyssey of the 1940s
  by Sheila Fitzpatrick
  
  Melbourne University Publishing
  
  Melbourne University Press
  Biographies & Memoirs , History
  
  Pub Date 03 Jul 2017
  
  I am reviewing a copy of Mischka's War through Melbourne University Press and Netgalley:
  
  Misha was born in Riga, Latvia in 1922. In 1940 Mischka had just finished school and started his first job at Riga's State Electrotechnical Factory.
  
  Olga and Arpad Danos were married around 1920. Arpad sound success with a singing career until he lost his voice, then he lost both his singing career and his wealth. But in 1926 the family still had their wealth and was able for the family to spend a year in Italy.
  
  On June.22.1941 Operation Barbosa was launched against the Soviet's.
  
  Mary and Olga were pure ethnic Latvians, but they did not agree with the Nazi's persecution and acted accordingly. Mary hid Jews in her apartment and was arrested on March.18.1943.
  
  All three of the Danos brothers were of call up age but none of them wanted to serve in the German army. Jan was the first one to get into real trouble he was called up in January 1943 and went into hiding for six months but was caught and imprisoned for six months. In February of 1944 he was released from prison and taken to the hospital where he was treated for Pleurisy.
  
  Misha came before the mobilization commission on December.09.1943 he was temporararily excused At the end of April 1944 Misha set off to study in Germany.
  
  Mischka married Helga in 1949.
  
  I give Mischka's War five out of five stars!
  
  Happy Reading!
• 
  Barbara

  From the book cover: Sheila Fitzpatrick pieces together her late husband's story through diaries, correspondence and recollections: 'This is a historian's book but it's also a wife's book about her husband ... an offering of love that is also a search for knowledge.'
  But, as Sheila Fitzpatrick confesses, it is as much the story of Olga, Mischka's courageous and unconventional mother.
  Such stories remind us how much we take for granted, and how carelessly we often treat the freedoms that we enjoy.
  This memoir is satisfying on several levels. Thank you Sheila Fitzpatrick for sharing it.
• 
  Mel

  Really interesting book , both a testament to a loving family and painting a vivid picture of the confusion and trauma in ww2 europe . It was also illuminating to read about the displaced people of europe and a timeline of events surrounding their status. I personally enjoyed reading more about Latvian history too both in Riga and the wider country. The writers love for her husband is all over the pages .
• 
  John Kidman

  I didn’t like the characters at all. An excessive and obsessive Olga, an arrogant and self opinionated Mischka. Incredible research but this didn’t make for an engaging and cohesive read.