I was given this book for my birthday-something I probably would not have discovered on my own. I was immediately drawn into the story of one family and their collection of Japanese netsuke. De Waal starts his family biography in Japan with the death of his great uncle Ignaz and his inheritance of the collection. Then he takes us back to the beginnings of the collection in Paris during the 1870s when the craze for all things Japanese was just beginning. De Waal traces back his family's start as wheat traders in Odessa, the accumulation of wealth, the establishment of the family banking business in Paris, and the expansion into Vienna. The family's wealth did not insulate them from anti-Semitism. Their collection of netsuke and other fine arts was often their entree into high society. Sadly, the rise of Hitler marked the downfall of the family. Many family members were murdered in the Holocaust and their wealth appropriated by the Nazis. The netsuke collection was miraculously restored to the family thanks to a loving family servant. Today the netsuke are an actual, physical link to past family members. The miniatures were handled by them and each one evokes a family memory. In the end, the Hare with the Amber Eyes is a different kind of Holocaust memoir- one told by the silent witness of a family's lost possessions. 354 pages.
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