Author(s): Linda Kinstler

History | Eastern Europe | Jewish History

'A masterpiece' Peter Pomerantsev'Kinstler reminds us of the dangerous instability of truth and testimony, and the urgent need, in the twenty-first century, to keep telling the history of the twentieth' Anne Applebaum'First I was moved, then I was gripped and now I am haunted . . . Astonishing' Ben JudahTo probe the past is to submit the memory of one's ancestors to a certain kind of trial. In this case, the trial came to me.A few years ago Linda Kinstler discovered that a man fifty years dead a former Nazi who belonged to the same killing unit as her grandfather was the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation in Latvia. The proceedings threatened to pardon his crimes. They put on the line hard-won facts about the Holocaust at the precise moment that the last living survivors the last legal witnesses were dying.Across the world, Second World War-era cases are winding their way through the courts. Survivors have been telling their stories for the better part of a century, and still judges ask for proof. Where do these stories end? What responsibilities attend their transmission, so many generations on? How many ghosts need to be put on trial for us to consider the crime scene of history closed?In this major non-fiction debut, Linda Kinstler investigates both her family story and the archives of ten nations to examine what it takes to prove history in our uncertain century. Probing and profound, Come to this Court and Cry is about the nature of memory and justice when revisionism, ultra-nationalism and denialism make it feel like history is slipping out from under our feet. It asks how the stories we tell about ourselves, our families and our nations are passed down, how we alter them, and what they demand of us.

Review: Victims and perpetrators meet in Kinstler's bloodline, but family history is only one strand of a remarkable book that braids together her own rigorously reported investigations in 10 countries with the survivors' eight-decade quest for justice and poetic meditations on such subjects as history, law, Latvian identity, Franz Kafka and the politics of remembrance. This is a tremendous feat of storytelling, propelled by numerous twists and revelations, yet anchored by a deep moral seriousness * Guardian *
Combines meticulous historical research with philosophical inquiries into nationalism, holocaust denial, guilt and the burden of proof. This is an invaluable and highly readable account of not only one family's story, but also of a period on the cusp of passing from living memory * New Internationalist *
[A] remarkable new book . . . There is a complex and powerful family story here . . . Asks large questions about the capacity of historical and legal practice to encompass the moral horror of the Holocaust, and about what justice is, or has ever been, possible * The Critic *
Linda Kinstler has achieved something truly unusual: a book that captures the paradoxes and nuances of memory politics in contemporary Eastern Europe, while at the same time invoking the trauma that past tragedies leave on individuals and families. Using rigorous, evocative prose, she reminds us of the dangerous instability of truth and testimony, and the urgent need, in the 21st century, to keep telling the history of the 20th -- Anne Applebaum
The atrocities of the twentieth century have still not passed, still less the effects of the period's most pernicious secrets. Now a new generation is reckoning with the crimes of the Holocaust and the dark shadows of the Cold War. In this brilliant and compelling book, Linda Kinstler takes us back to Latvia, to her family history, and to a question which - in our new age of fascist-tolerance - is more urgent still: what is justice? -- Lyndsey Stonebridge
In her completely absorbing and profound debut, Linda Kinstler sets out to solve a mystery - journeying from a murder scene in Uruguay to the former killing fields of Europe to unravel a family secret about her late grandfather - and in the process unearths vexing questions about the past and how we understand it. Part detective story, part family history, part probing inquiry into how best to reckon with the horrors of a previous century, Come To This Court and Cry is bracingly original, beautifully written, and haunting. An astonishing book -- Patrick Radden Keefe
A powerful and very moving account of the aftermath of the Holocaust in Latvia, & the value and meaning of different kinds of evidence, by [Linda Kinstler]. Highly recommended. -- Richard Ovenden

Author Biography: Linda Kinstler is a contributing writer at the Economist's 1843 magazine. Her coverage of European politics, history and cultural affairs has appeared in the Atlantic, New York Times, Guardian, Wired, Jewish Currents and more. She is a PhD Candidate in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley and previously studied in the UK as a Marshall Scholar. She has received numerous fellowships and awards and has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN and MSNBC, among others. She lives in Washington, DC.