Reading

This month a televised series plays what's based on the family of the author Alexander Münninghoff, who was a journalist for the daily paper 'Haagsche Courant' what my parents read and I too. I remember his reports from Moscov and Afghanistan (pre Afghan war) where he interviewed Ahmed Shah Massoud; Afghans resistance fighter who warned for Al Qaïda and was killed two days prior to 9/11. Massoud's son now continuous his father's battle from the Panshir Valley against the Taliban. 
 
Anyway, journalist Alexander Münninghoff intrigued me and years ago I got hold of his memoires from Moscov; "Tropical Years in Moscov". I didn't know he'd written a chronicle about his ancestors, but there it is: "The Heir". In the bookshops visited, I couldn't find it, so I'd ordered it via internet and got it in today, within 24 hours! His writing is compelling and down here I put his words for the intro to his story: 

"I was born on April 13, 1944 in Posen, an old Polish city that was called Pozna for centuries. But when I was born there, in the midst of bombardments that seemed to herald the end of times, this Posen was a German city from which Hitler's Germany had sent its Heerestruppen to the Soviet Union, and which now shelters the maimed, the wounded, the dead and an endless stream of refugees returned.
My family took part in that drama. This book is about them. And about the consequences of the war. About a cunning grandfather, who had become one of the richest people in Latvia in a spectacular way, but had to flee to the Netherlands two days before the war broke out with his Russian wife and four children, leaving behind all his possessions. About a naive father who fought against the Soviets on the Eastern Front, in the uniform of the Waffen SS, out of idealism and then perished in the Netherlands. About a mother who fled to Germany after the divorce and was not allowed to be my mother. And about me, the grandson, the son, the heir. "

Alexander Münninghoff (Pozna, 1944 - Den Haag 2021) is a journalist and Russia expert. He is the winner of the Prize for Newspaper Journalism and author of Tropical Years in Moscow (1991), about his time as a correspondent in the Soviet Union. The ancestor is autobiographical and based on facts and family stories.

Ah yes, the red book cover with Resistance Songs from Greece showing the known photo of Greece's resistance leader Aris Velouchiotis; Sweetheart mentioned this man in his phonecall with me and asked if I recalled that name...
I could instantly show him this booklet from my shelves; yes, I remembered :-)