“This is a meticulous and finely written account of Dina Gold’s struggle to seek belated justice for her mother, with all the twists and turns one would expect from a fictional detective story — but it is all true.”
When Dina Gold was a little girl, her grandmother told her stories about the glamorous life she had led in pre-war Berlin and how she dreamed of one day reclaiming the grand building that had housed the family business.
Dina’s grandmother died in 1977, leaving behind no documents, not even an address, to help locate the property or prove its ownership. But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Dina had not forgotten her grandmother’s tales and set out to find the truth.
In 1990, Dina marched into a German government ministry at Krausenstrasse 17/18, just two blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, and declared:
“I’ve come to claim my family’s building.”
And so began her legal struggle — to reclaim the building that had belonged to her family.
The six-story office block had been the headquarters of the H. Wolff fur company, one of the most successful Jewish fashion firms in Germany. Built by Dina’s great-grandfather in 1910, it was foreclosed on by the Victoria Insurance Company in 1937. Ownership was transferred to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Hitler’s railways, that later transported millions of Jews to death camps.
Today the Victoria is part of ERGO, a leading German insurance company. Few are aware that the Victoria was once chaired by a lawyer with connections to the top of the Nazi party. The Victoria was also part of a consortium that insured SS-owned workshops using slave labor at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
Dina has delved deep into archives across the world and made shocking discoveries. What she found has repercussions even in today’s Germany.
In a major victory, Dina persuaded the German government to put up a plaque in July 2016 acknowledging in both German and English the history of “The Wolff Building.”
Initially he had reservations about reading the book, arising from his disappointment at the derisory compensation given to former Nazi slave laborers in Auschwitz whose cause he had championed as their honorary academic adviser. Yet Dr Pinto-Duchinsky discovered that his hesitation had been misplaced …the book shows the exceptional determination, skill and luck needed by Jewish heirs in search of belated justice.
And, encouragingly, he believes that stories such as mine appear … to be helping rather than hindering elderly survivors of the concentration and death camps and their families. I do hope that is the case.
“A determined struggle for justice” is the headline of a review in the February edition of the AJR Journal. The article goes on to say: … the book covers far more than simply a legal battle. It is also a well researched history of an interesting family.
The reviewer is kind enough to remark: Dina Gold is to be commended for her persistence and determination not only in fighting for the return of her family’s property but also in tracing the fate of her relations and exposing the misdeeds of apparently respectable organisations and individuals.
In recognition of it being International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a review by Lori Lowenthal Marcus in the Jewish Press A few extracts as a taster of the entire article:
A granddaughter’s grit, her investigative journalist skills, serendipity, the Germans’ propensity for keeping records all combine to make a true historic adventure – a victory against the Nazis – in Dina Gold’s “Stolen Legacy.”
Dina Gold’s book, Stolen Legacy (Ankerwycke 2015), is a rare Holocaust story. Her family tale combines all the drama and heart-pounding fear of Jews on the run, of Jewish families scattered throughout the world, of loss and, remarkably, of final vindication.
Gold’s story is unique in being a true detective novel and a document-driven courtroom drama, set in the heart of the Nazi Empire.
Read the whole piece. Here are some choice extracts:
The theme of the story is Gold’s struggle to recover a large and valuable office building in the heart of Berlin that had belonged to her grandparents, then to the Third Reich, then to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and then to the government of a united Germany. But the theme frequently takes a backseat to tangents and local color. Stolen Legacy is also distinctive among Holocaust books in its unusually unpleasant cast of good guys. The author is perfectly honest in describing her flawed and schismatic family: wastrel philanderers and Communists in prewar Germany, irresponsible stiffnecks in Israel, snobs in postwar Britain. The fact that she manages never to sound disloyal to her family shows a certain finesse.
How did it turn out? I won’t spoil it for you. But if you’re interested in a good detective yarn lasting 150 years, Stolen Legacy won’t disappoint.
Today Kirkus posted this great review of “Stolen Legacy.”
The piece concludes:
… an engaging, well-written depiction of how the Holocaust destroyed individual lives as well as families and community relationships. Although the story centers on a valuable piece of property, Gold’s measured, compassionate prose makes it clear that it’s not a tale of financial gain, but one of justice and the survival of a persecuted people.
A highly readable account of one family’s fight for personal and financial vindication.
In his Standpoint magazine review, entitled Holocaust Survivors Are still Waiting for Justice, Michael Pinto-Duchinsky says Stolen Legacy is riveting, humane and politically important.
“A determined struggle for justice” is the headline of a review in the February edition of the 
In recognition of it being International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a review by Lori Lowenthal Marcus in the 
What a lovely review by Josh Gelernter in 
Today Kirkus posted this great 
