I bought this book when I saw it on Amazon.co.uk. I couldn’t not, and I wanted to tell you about it. It is a love story, set in the darkest of times and true.

Jack and Rochelle have written this account of their life during the occupation of Poland, first by the Russians, and then by the German Nazis.  I resented having to put the book down, I inhaled it, absorbed it.

As an historian I know a great deal of the war and its various facets but I still can’t understand the holocaust. I’m not sure that anyone can if they haven’t experienced it. But even if they have, how can they understand it. It is an aberration, a stain that will never fade; the mechanised murder of a race. Yes there were millions of others too. Poles, soviets, gypsies, but it was the anti-semitic determination to exterminate a whole race (in its millions)  that was the driving force.

Jack and Rochelle shows a different facet of this appalling time. It highlights the fact that throughout Europe the Jews fought back, and this is seldom known, or if it is, perhaps not accepted. But indeed they did. Some singly, some in groups, there were the revolts in concentration camps like Treblinka, and what about Warsaw?

During the war Poland was divided between Germany and Russia. Russia took the east, which is where Jack and Rochelle lived. The Soviets had a different official policy, one that  precluded  discrimination on the basis of ethnic or religious groupings. Yes there was anti-semitism, but not an officially orchestrated and managed terror. It was only when the Germans attacked the Soviets that the Jews in the east of Poland were in as great a peril as those already under the Nazis heel.

It was then that Jack and Rochelle made their own ways into the forests to escape their fate, just as the partisan group led by the Bielski brothers had, as recorded in Defiance written by  Nechama Tec.

Jack and Rochelle is a memoir that charts the protagonists’ lives as they gathered together in the forest, disparate runaways who formed a partisan group,  living underground in the harshest of conditions, and through the freezing winters. They were often hunted by their enemies, sometimes discovered, but they fought free, survived, and started again. They existed as part of the resistance, knowing their enemy was not just the Nazis, but anti-semitic Poles and sometimes the Russian partisans. They were safe only for as long as they took this present breath, this next step, after that, who knew.

Jack and Rochelle’s love is a hesitant affair, and it is Jack’s absolute belief that he and Rochelle are destined a) find one another, and b) love one another until the end of their days, that gives such heart to this book. Jack and Rochelle is an understated, intelligent, matter of fact recollection of how people can survive if they live within a group, and are intent on surviving, organising and resisting. It is a triumph of the human spirit in a time which defies description. It is inspirational, and educational.

Beautifully edited by Jack and Rochelle’s son, author Lawrence Sutin.

There you are, you see, Jack and Rochelle survived, had a family and flourished. Bravo.

Read it.

Jack and Rochelle. Published by Daunt Books. £9.99

The Blenheim Palace Festival of Literature, Film and Music will return to the stunning grounds of Blenheim Palace from Thursday 13^thOctober to Sunday 16^thOctober this year. Events so far confirmed will cover the   fields of literature, music, politics, religion and film, and this year the festival is making a new departure with a fascinating range of food-and-drink themed events, including dinners and cookery demonstrations.

Perfumer and businesswoman Jo Malone and the internationally acclaimed Chef Ken Hom will discuss the significance of smell, taste and food in their lives and how they rose from modest beginnings to international fame, whilst Former Deputy Master of the Royal Household Edward Griffiths will speak about his experiences serving Her Majesty the Queen and his new book of recipes from Buckingham Palace which he has co-authored with Royal Chef 3 Griffiths spent 14 years working for the Royal Household and has been involved in many royal and state occasions including the wedding reception of TRH Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Italian journalist and food writer Eleonora Galasso will invite the audience to experience the culinary delights of Rome by sharing traditional Italian recipes from her cookery book As the Romans Do alongside a cookery demonstration. Alice Lascelles, columnist on spirits and cocktails for The Times and founder of the award-winning magazine Imbibe for bartenders and sommeliers, will recount the more than ten years she has spent endeavouring to find the perfect cocktail. The talk will be accompanied with a tasting.

The festival will also include a series of unique dinners overseen by acclaimed international chefs and food experts. Ken Hom will open the festival with his Chinese-themed Festival Opening Dinner, and restaurant-owners and chefs Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi will present a Sicilian-themed menu for this year’s closing dinner.

The Royal Black Tie Literary Dinner, Dior at Blenheim will be hosted by their Graces The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and Harper’s Bazaar editor Justine Picardie will present a talk about the inspiring influence of Blenheim Palace on the great fashion houses after dinner.

To check availability and book tickets and to keep up to date with speaker and event announcements visit www,blenheimpalaceliteraryfestival.com  or tickets may be booked on 0333 666 3366 or in person at Oxford Visitor Information Centre, Broad Street, Oxford and at The Feathers hotel, Woodstock.

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It isn’t often that one realises that we are standing at a particular time in history, a moment after which things will change forever. Fortunately Kois Miah, a photographer, understood the importance of what was happening to an iconic landmark in a neighbourhood where he had grown up, tucked away in the shadow of Canary Wharf.

‘Evening rain, west building. Contrary to the oft-repeated story that the aerial ‘streets in the sky’ failed as social spaces, most of the residents interviewed spoke of them with enthusiasm; as thresholds between domestic interiors and the intensity of open sky; as places to chat or play...’ Kois Miah

Of course I knew Robin Hood Gardens, I had walked by it regularly when I worked in the East End of London . I had witnessed countless numbers of architecture students asking for directions cameras and notebooks poised and one couldn’t read an article about Brutalism and Brutalist Architecture (think the Barbican) without some reference to Robin Hood Gardens.

In the last two or three years Robin Hood Gardens has been in the news again, only this time there was a fight to save the buildings, the architecture and for some, the community. The fight was eventually lost and a programme of moving people out of their homes was begun.

I now realise that I had fallen into the trap of considering the architecture but not sparing a moment’s thought for the individuals and families that lived there. It took an artist like Kois Miah to open my eyes.

True to the people it represents, this exhibition is off Poplar High Street within walking distance of Robin Hood Gardens. The Poplar Docklands Light Railway is one stop from Canary Wharf and from there it is less than a 5 minute walk.

‘On the walkway of the east building, November 20-15. The mother of this young boy explained that he liked to walk visitors to the lift at the end of the deck, which he was doing here, until something in the view caught his attention.’ Kois Miah

Set amongst the architecture of the restored St Matthias Community Centre each of the 35 pictures tell the story of those on whom commentators have traditionally imposed their narrative.

I went around the exhibition three times each time seeing something new. The little girl peeking through the glass whilst her sister sits wrapped in a blanket on a sofa; the man smoking defiantly beneath the no smoking sign; and the old man who tends the vegetable plot is clutching a small plant in one hand and a stick to make the planting hole in the other.

‘Pat and her husband John have lived in the east block since 1977 in a two bedroom maisonette which, like any other up and down the country, they have made their own…  ‘We were living in Tottenham with John’s sister’, Pat recalled on how she was housed by the council. ‘I didn’t like it when we moved in but it gradually got better. I am a Catholic and my neighbours are Muslim and they are lovely…’ Kois Miah

The exhibition is a collaboration between Kois Miah and and Nick Thoburn, Senior Sociology Lecturer at Manchester University and local campaigning groups SPLASH (South Poplar & Limehouse Action for Secure Housing) and Docklands Outreach is open until the 21st of October.