Outsider Inside

Like all refugees, Karl Hartland [Hannam] carried within himself his hidden identity as child refugee from Germany escaping the Holocaust, in which most of his family perished. Life experiences in the British Army, at Cambridge, and later returning to post-war Germany, brought with them conflict in terms of his sense of being an Englishman in contrast to his upper-class German-Jewish early upbringing. After experiencing the British class system in India and Burma, and coping with the Army's inherent virulent racism, post-war academic success introduced him to the other side of the class divide first as a teacher at a posh prep school and later studying at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In this final volume of his biography trilogy (previous volumes: A Boy in Your Situation; Almost an Englishman, Andr Deutsch), Charles Hannam provides a telling account of the long-term effects of the refugee experience and what made him an Outsider. It is compelling reading, especially for those who have experienced the wrench between cultures as part of the adjustment process of being forced to accommodate new values and behaviour as a refugee.