A Haven from Hitler is a family memoir revolving around the experiences of the author's mother, Kate Bosse, but it is also a fascinating exploration of identity.After the rise of Hitler, the German Lutheran family of Bosse found themselves increasingly defined as Jewish (through their mother's Jewish antecedents), and suffered persecution even though their loyalty and sense of identity lay with Germany. The Jewish identity was imposed on them by external hatred. Kate Bosse, a brilliant scholar and linguist, secured work in Britain in 1937 and, through her subsequent love for and marriage to Welsh scholar Gwyn Griffiths, found a new Welsh identity and a successful, creative career as a writer in Welsh.The Bosses were a prosperous mercantile family in Wittenberg, and Paul Bosse, Kate's father, was a highly respected surgeon in the town hospital. His wife, Kaethe, was a member of the Levin family, who changed their name to the less Jewish Ledien and had converted to Christianity in the previous century. The Levins were also wealthy professionals, and both the Bosses and the Levins had international friends and connections. Paul and several of his brothers-in-law served in the German army in the First World War.

Despite the innately anti-Semitic elements in the Lutheran church, there was no pressure on a family like the Bosses until the rise of Hitler. Paul's two daughters, Kate and Dolly, had an exceptionally good classical education. Dolly and her brother Gunther became doctors, Kate travelled, studied abroad and became an Egyptologist - a career she returned to in her sixties, when she was largely responsible for setting up the Egyptian Museum in Swansea.Given their connections and resources, it seems strange to an English reader that more of the family did not take their chance to escape once the persecution began. Gunther, though married to a Swede, not only remained in Germany but served in the army - until purged and put in a camp, where his medical knowledge saved many lives. Nothing could be a clearer indication of the self-destructive futility of Nazism than the systematic waste and exclusion of the skills and potential of its loyal population by arbitrarily defining them out.In contrast, Kate found in Wales a family, a land and a culture in which she could find great fulfilment and become an inspiration to others. Despite knowing something of the Nazis' actions, Gwyn Griffiths held to his Christian principles and was a conscientious objector.

Kate and the Griffiths family were at the centre of a literary circle which published in Welsh on a wide range of subjects in their own and other established periodicals. In her poetry, Kate expresses the importance of maintaining civilised values through the storm of war.:'Fe ddaeth y storm a derfydd,/Ti, fab y werin, clyw!/O cadw ac ymgeledda/Yr hyn a ddylai fyw .' (Keep and treasure what should live on after the storm.)Kate's care for German POWs when she lived in Bala towards the end of the war was a further example of this principle. She and her surviving family, who persisted in healing others against all obstacles, are instances of the humanity that can survive under extreme and barbaric pressures.Heini Gruffudd and some of his relatives began to gather documents and evidence about the family for their own interest, but a shared and growing feeling that the story of the war-time generation should not be lost, combined with encouragement from S4C and y Lolfa, resulted in first the Welsh and now the English version of this book. One could hardly find a clearer testimony to the barrenness of racist hatred and the fruitfulness of generous love.