The Mahler Family

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– but the seeds of the persecution were already there, in Vienna, in the ever-present anti-Semitism which Mahler himself had to suffer and deal with; and of course members of hisfamily were caught up in the tidal wave of the holocaust when it came. Robin O’Neil’s bookis valuable in that it is the only one that makes this necessary connection. Coming events casttheir shadow before. In a sense one is pleased that Mahler was spared this awful development,unlike his friend Arnold Berliner.’ – Charles Muller: Diadem Books.Through the Mahler family letters between Gustav Mahler and the physicist Arnold Berliner,we are privy to their inner thoughts and daily musical life during Vienna’s ‘golden autumn’ thatpreceded the turbulent times that followed. After Mahler’s passing and with the rise of NationalSocialism, we follow the lives of the extended Mahler family, their friends, associates, andVienna’s musical and operatic elite. With the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws, we observethe frontal attack on European Jewry and subsequent deportation policy enabling a ‘Jew-free’Reich, where many close friends and family were to end their days in exile and the death campsof Nazi Germany. We follow Dr Berliner into the world of German scientific research, whereamong this collective of scientists, Berliner’s close friend is the highest-placed British spy inGermany throughout World War II. This was significant in the race to dominate the nuclearage…and the atomic bomb.After the war, and well into the 21st Century, we are treated to an amazing recovery of perhapsGustav Mahler’s greatest song and with it, a tale of brutality beyond measure in an attempt tosave it.‘You possess an incredible wealth of material and know all the sources that could possiblyconsulted on the subject. It is important to ‘strike the right balance’ which is a question thatis not so easily answered. To my mind, you have already succeeded – you made a choice – verydramatic – indeed: perhaps