My Grandfather's Knife

A knife adorned with a swastika and an eagle's head ... As a young boy, Joseph Pearson was terrified of the weapon hanging from a hook in his grandfather's basement, a trophy seized from the enemy in battle. When he later inherited the knife, he unlocked a story far more unsettling than he could ever have imagined. By then a writer and cultural historian living in Berlin, Joseph found himself drawn to other objects from the Nazi era: a pocket diary, a recipe book, a double bass and a cotton pouch. Although the past remains a painful subject in Germany, he embarked on a journey to illuminate their stories before they disappeared from living memory. A historical detective story and an enthralling account of one historian's search for answers, My Grandfather's Knife is at once a poignant meditation on memory and a unique addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany.

Dr Joseph Pearson was born in Canada and studied at Middlebury College in Vermont and at the University of Cambridge. He taught at Columbia University and currently lectures at the Barenboim-Said Academy. He is the author of Berlin (Reaktion Press), a portrait of the city in which he now lives and works.