George Clare (writer)

George Peter Clare (né Georg Klaar) (21 December 1920 – 26 March 2009) was a British Jewish author and Holocaust survivor who wrote Last Waltz in Vienna and Berlin Days, both autobiographies. Last Waltz won the 1982 WH Smith Literary Award.

He was born in Vienna in 1920; his father, Ernst Klaar, was an assimilated Jewish banker. He fought during World War II for the British Army and worked as a news editor for many years, including for Axel Springer AG. He was naturalised in 1947. He died on 26 March 2009, aged 88.

Books

In Last Waltz in Vienna he recounts his childhood and life as a Jew in Vienna and goes on to describe Hitler's rise to power and the catastrophe that followed, including his parents' death in Auschwitz. It also tells of his escape to Ireland, where he married Lisl Beck the day after Kristallnacht, and subsequent enlistment in the British Army, first in the Pioneer Corps and then in the Royal Artillery.

In Berlin Days he recounts his work at the denazification bureaucracy, where he became highly skilled in identifying lies and omissions in application forms.

External links

• Obituary in The Independent 1 July 2009
• Obituary in the Daily Telegraph 12 April 2009
• The Times obituary