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Helen Fry, a research fellow in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College, London, has written a moving volume of Freudiana that captures the war exploits of one line and two members of the Freud family. Using hitherto unpublished material, she describes the heroic World War I experiences of Jean Martin Freud (Freud's oldest son, known as Martin) and the equally heroic experiences of Martin's son Anton Walter (known as Walter) in World War II. Along the way, she offers an intimate picture of the Freud family at war and in peace time, their escape from the Nazis, and a detailed genealogy, as well as many previously unpublished pictures. Thus, for fans of Freud, this book is a revealing and delightful treat.
In a 1988 unpublished manuscript, “An Austrian Grandfather,” Walter Freud wrote fondly of his grandparents, and alluded to the later collapse of his own parents' marriage:
The first star of that court was without doubt grandmother. Not only was she the first, but she was also the catalyst who made the whole court function…. Detractors of Grandfather, unable to attack him on scientific grounds, have imputed sexual malpractices such as cessation of intercourse and a switch of affection from his wife to his sister-in-law. These stories were either
Page 869malicious inventions or repeated by those who did not have the privilege of knowing my grandparents. According to my personal experience, and my own parents have unfortunately given me plenty of opportunity to recognize an unhappy marriage, my paternal grandparents were a particularly devoted couple …. Grandfather's whole demeanor toward his wife showed his affection, [pp. 20-21]
Martin's marriage to Esti Drucker, who was described as “too pretty” for the Freud family, ended sadly and with hostility. Walter stayed in Europe with his father after the escape from the Germans, and his younger sister Miriam Sophie (called Sophie) came to the United States with Esti, her mother, after their own narrow esca