Canongate signs Kohnstamm's 'moving and profound' Holocaust family history

Canongate has landed Jackie Kohnstamm's The Memory Keeper, a "beautiful, page-turning" investigation into her family history and the shadow of the Holocaust.

Editorial director Simon Thorogood acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Rowan Lawton at the Soho Agency. German language rights have been sold to Blanvalet. The book is slated for May 2023.

Kohnstamm is the child of Jewish German refugees who escaped Nazi Germany ahead of the outbreak of the Second World War. She is the only grandchild of Mally and Max Rychwalski who, unlike their three children Hilda, Ernst and Charlotte, did not escape Berlin and were murdered by the Nazis in Theresienstadt concentration camp. Growing up, Kohnstamm only learnt snippets about her grandparents’ life.

After the deaths of her mother, aunt and uncle, she found herself the unwitting family archivist with a tranche of photographs, letters and family papers she kept hidden away in drawers for years. On Googling her grandparents’ names she discovered that two Stolpersteine had been laid for them in Berlin only four days before. Stolpersteine – stumbling stones – were created by German artist Gunter Demnig, placed as memorial stones for victims of the Holocaust outside their previous homes. 

As of December 2019, 75,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, making the project the world's largest decentralised memorial. "That Stolpersteine had been laid for her own grandparents, only days before and unbeknown to Jackie, was a sign; she was finally ready to shatter decades of silence to delve deeper into her family history, to travel to Berlin on a journey to fully inhabit her role as the Rychwalski family memory keeper," the synopsis explains.

"The Memory Keeper is a moving and profound record of Jackie’s emotional journey as she learns about her family’s past and tries to process the trauma of the Holocaust as it speaks to her in the present."

Kohnstamm studied French at the University of East Anglia and taught in France. While lecturing in higher education, she published short stories and articles. Her plays have also been produced on BBC radio and the stage. 

"I never thought I could ever get to know my grandparents, shadowy figures in a few black-and-white photos," she said. "But once I started digging, I couldn’t stop, and gradually two warm-hearted, complex individuals emerged out of nothingness. It has been both disturbing and immensely satisfying to bring them back into the world."

Thorogood said: "We can’t be reminded too often of the lives lost to oppression and fascism, but it can be hard to tell these stories with originality and compulsive readability. Yet this is exactly what Jackie Kohnstamm has done in this beautiful, page-turning investigation into her family history. I love this book."