David Simon is Director of Mistra Urban Futures, Gothenburg, and Professor of Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. His previous books include Rethinking Sustainable Cities (2016) and the co-edited collection Fifty Key Thinkers on Development (2008).

Author is a high-profile development studies scholar and this work represents a labour of love on his part - his own grandparents were Holocaust escapees.

To Hell and Back - For My Grandparents: Visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, 2 March 19971. Introduction2. European Childhoods, Nazi Rule and Escape3. Surviving the War in the UK4. Wartime Tracks in Europe and North America5. Adult Escapees: Rebuilding Lives, (Re)shaping Careers6. The Younger Generation: Postwar Education and Careers in Higher Education7. The Younger Generation: International Agency Staff and Influential Consultants8. Conclusions: Interpreting the Mosaic ReferencesAppendix: Biographical Sketches of People Excluded from the Study by Virtue of the Threshold Conditions

The thousands uprooted and displaced by the Holocaust had a profound cultural impact on the countries in which they sought refuge, with numerous Holocaust escapees attaining prominence as scientists, writers, filmmakers and artists. But what is less well known is the way in which this refugee diaspora shaped the scholarly culture of their new-found homes and international policy. In this unique work, David Simon explores the pioneering role played by mostly Jewish refugee scholars in the creation of development studies and practice following the Second World War, and what we can learn about the discipline by examining the social and intellectual history of its early practitioners.Through in-depth interviews with key figures and their relatives, Simon considers how the escapees' experiences impacted their scholarship, showing how they played a key role in shaping their belief that 'development' really did hold the potential to make a better world, free from the horrors of war, genocide and discrimination they had experienced under Nazi rule. In the process, he casts valuable new light on the origins and evolution of development studies, policy and practice from this formative postwar period to the present.