Robin Lustig: And The Cello Came Too – In conversation with Afua Hirsch

Ropetackle Arts Centre

When Robin Lustig’s mother died in 2013, he found himself drawn back into the tangled history of his German Jewish family — a story of survival, exile, death and endurance. And the Cello Came Too is both a personal memoir and a family chronicle, spanning centuries of Jewish life in Europe, its near-destruction under the Nazis and its slow rebirth in the years after the Second World War. At its heart is the award-winning journalist and broadcaster’s father, Fritz Lustig, a refugee from Berlin whose cello accompanied him through upheaval, war and a new life in Britain. From Enlightenment rabbis and pioneering journalists to the ‘Three Old Ladies’ who helped to shape his childhood, Lustig pieces together a sweeping narrative from letters, memoirs, and memory. This is a history not just of persecution but also of resilience and continuity — of lives rebuilt, music played, and stories reclaimed. Moving, intimate, and meticulously researched, And the Cello Came Too shows how one family’s journey can illuminate the universal struggle to survive, remember, and belong. Robin discusses some of the themes from his book with best-selling author and film-maker Afua Hirsch. How do we define identity in today’s Britain? What does it mean to grow up with a foreign name? Are the British-born children of immigrants really British? Robin Lustig is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster who presented The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 and Newshour on BBC World Service between 1989 and 2012. He began his journalistic career with Reuters, and then spent 12 years at The Observer. In 2013, he received the Charles Wheeler Award for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism, and in 2017 he published a memoir, Is Anything Happening?