Description:
An Austrian-born British biographer, historian and journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and child abuse. She is a stepdaughter of the economist Ludwig von Mises.
Born: Vienna, Austria.
Father: Ferdinand Serény, was a Hungarian Protestant.
Mother: Margit Herzfeld, a former actress from Hamburg, of Jewish origin.
Educated in England and France, in addition to her Austrian schooling.
When she was thirteen, her train journey to boarding school in the United Kingdom was delayed in Nuremberg where she attended one of the annual Nuremberg rallies. After writing about the rally for a class assignment
An Austrian-born British biographer, historian and journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and child abuse. She is a stepdaughter of the economist Ludwig von Mises.
Born: Vienna, Austria.
Father: Ferdinand Serény, was a Hungarian Protestant.
Mother: Margit Herzfeld, a former actress from Hamburg, of Jewish origin.
Educated in England and France, in addition to her Austrian schooling.
When she was thirteen, her train journey to boarding school in the United Kingdom was delayed in Nuremberg where she attended one of the annual Nuremberg rallies. After writing about the rally for a class assignment she was given 'Mein' to read by her teacher so she might be able to understand what she saw there.
After the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, she moved to France where she worked with refugee children during the German occupation until she was warned of her imminent arrest. She then fled to the United States.
After World War II, she worked for the United Nations with refugees in occupied Germany. Among her tasks was reuniting children - who had been kidnapped by the Nazis to be raised as "Aryans" - with their biological families. This could be a traumatic experience because the children did not always remember their original family.
She attended the Nuremberg Trials for four days in 1945 as an observer and it was here that she first saw Albert Speer about whom she would later write the book 'Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth'.
Awards:
It was for the book 'Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth' that she was awarded the 1995 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
In the 2004 New Year's Honours List, Sereny was awarded a CBE for services to Journalism, which she received at a special ceremony at the Foreign Office.
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