The Locked Safe: The Story behind the Story

Speakers: Miriam E. David and Charlotte Reiner 

When her mother died in 1996, Miriam David found a locked safe with five ‘Nazi’ passports. Her father, a German-Jewish engineer, who had fled Nazism in 1936, had died sixteen years earlier. The help of her mother’s family, who had fled from pogroms in Ukraine/Russia in the late nineteenth century and some of whom had been caught up with Japanese internment camps in China, was essential in piecing together the story. 

In this talk, Miriam David discusses how and why she came to write her ‘back story’. She considers British internment and looks ahead to her own generation (the so-called ‘second generation’) and that of her own daughter, Charlotte Reiner (the ‘third generation’), who has written about her father’s Hungarian-Jewish family. The talk will show how the long-term psychological and social effects of migration continue to impact on the family’s life today and potentially on future generations. 

Miriam E. David is Professor Emerita in Sociology of Education at the UCL Institute of Education. Her publications include Being Second Generation (2021) and, with Merilyn Moos, has edited Debating the Zeitgeist (2021). 

Charlotte Reiner graduated from the University of Cambridge and holds Masters’ degrees from the University of Durham and University College London. She is has taught in both primary and secondary schools and is currently a freelance tutor. 

The Locked Safe: A Family Memoir by Miriam E. David with Charlotte Reiner, was published by AuthorHouse on 19 June 2024.   

Image:(c) Miriam E. David

All are welcome to attend this seminar, organised by the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies at the ILCS, in person or online (via Zoom). 

Attendance is free, but advance online registration is essential for both in person attendance and online.