Thursday's Child Has Far to Go: A Memoir of the Journeying Years

by Walter Laqueur

This is the story of a young man who, against considerable odds, was a survivor. Born in Breslau, which was then in Germany, to a family with roots in both Western Europe and Russia, Walter Laqueur describes with precision and deep involvement the days of his youth during one of the most fascinating periods of modern times - the last years of the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Nazi era. In a remarkable personal account, he re-creates a world that no longer exists - Nazi Germany - and tells what it meant to grow up there. Thursday's Child Has For to Go is not about high politics but about families of yesteryear, early friendships, school, "the group," the fears and hopes of an adolescent uprooted from his native country, a young wanderer through various worlds. Laqueur then shifts to Palestine on the eve of World War II, and describes his life as an agricultural laborer in a kibbutz, the joys of guard duty in the fields, and cowboy life among Bedouins and Arab herdsmen. As the war ends, we follow the author to cosmopolitan Jerusalem and Cairo. Unencumbered by formal education and academic degrees, he enters the world of journalism; as a political journalist he covers the critical years prior to the establishment of the state of Israel. These are memoirs of peace and war in yet another world that no longer exists, of the uneasy coexistence of Jews, Arabs, and British in Palestine. It is the record of living through yet another war in which survival was not a foregone conclusion. The memoir ends with the impressions of a postwar grand tour of Europe and the Soviet Union that led the young man from the provinces to London, to Left Bank Paris, and to the wild mountains of the Caucasus. This journey was a belated apprenticeship for a subsequent career as one of the leading historians of Europe and an internationally known and widely respected commentator on world affairs. Here is an extraordinarily moving account, told with honesty and skill. It is writte

Genres: Memoir

418 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Walter Ze'ev Laqueur was an American historian, journalist and political commentator. Laqueur was born in Breslau, Lower Silesia, Prussia (modern Wrocław, Poland), into a Jewish family. In 1938, he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust.

Laqueur lived in Israel from 1938 to 1953. After one year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined a Kibbutz and worked as an agricultural laborer from 1939 to 1944. In 1944, he moved to Jerusalem, where he worked as a journalist until 1953, covering Palestine and other countries in the Middle East.

Since 1955 Laqueur has lived in London. He was founder and editor, with George Mosse, of the Journal of Contemporary History and of Survey from 1956 to 1964. He was also founding editor of The Washington Papers. He was Director of the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library in London from 1965 to 1994. From 1969 he was a member, and later Chairman (until 2000), of the International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington. He was Professor of the History of Ideas at Brandeis University from 1968 to 1972, and University Professor at Georgetown University from 1976 to 1988. He has also been a visiting professor of history and government at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University and Johns Hopkins University.

Laqueur's main works deal with European history in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Russian history and German history, as well as the history of the Middle East. The topics he has written about include the German Youth Movement, Zionism, Israeli history, the cultural history of the Weimar Republic and Russia, Communism, the Holocaust, fascism, and the diplomatic history of the Cold War. His books have been translated into many languages, and he was one of the founders of the study of political violence, guerrilla warfare and terrorism. His comments on international affairs have appeared in many American and European newspapers and periodicals.

(Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Harry]

This is less of an autobiography than a detailed memoir and witness to history, suitable to be passed down to Laqueur’s children and grandchildren. It covers three main sections of Laqueur’s life: growing up in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) during Hitler’s rise to power (1921 – 1938), his life in Israel as a kibbutznik and journalist (1938 – 1952), and his subsequent life in Europe as an academic and historian. Of the three sections, I found his life in Israel to be the most interesting; the other sections seem to be burdened with mind-numbing details. Laqueuer writes as if his is a household name, and everyone knows his story.
It is significant what Laqueur omits from this memoir than what he includes. Chief among them is his relationship with his wife Naomi. We learn more about Naomi’s parents than Naomi herself. We learn very little about how and why he left journalism in Israel and became an acclaimed historian in Europe. We don’t know why he concentrated on Russian studies or why he moved to the U.S.
The first part of Laqueur’s life appears very passive; things just happen to him which he does not actively seek. He emigrates to Israel, not out of any Zionist ideals, but because of the lack of job prospects in Germany, the opportunity to escape the Third Reich, and the opportunity to study at Hebrew University. Despite lack of experience or even desire, he becomes a journalist through someone’s recommendation. Throughout Israel’s struggle for independence, he reports from the sidelines but does not actively participate in the struggle. Only when Laqueur matures does he actively put his incredible mind to intellectual pursuits.
Speaking of his mind, Laqueur is a true polymath. I find it amazing that until adulthood, Laqueur only spoke German. Then he learned Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, French and English. And he writes books in English as if it were his mother tongue! He is widely read, and he writes on a variety of historical and political issues. He has become an expert on Russian affairs, yet much of his research had of necessity to be done remotely.
The title is taken from a nursery rhyme. Yet I feel that “Saturday's child works hard for a living” from the same rhyme would be a more appropriate title.