Want to learn the ideas in Austerlitz better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of Austerlitz
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Austerlitz, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by W.G. Sebald.
1-Page Summary of Austerlitz
Overall Summary
Austerlitz is a historical novel by W. G. Sebald, who was a German writer and academic with an interest in the loss of memory and physical objects. He wrote mainly about World War II’s effect on German people, which he explored through his books.
The main character is Jacques Austerlitz. He’s a middle-aged architectural historian who arrived in England as a child refugee from Czechoslovakia during World War II. A Nazi regime was gaining power, so his parents sent him to live with an elderly couple who were Methodists. They were very kind and didn’t cause any trouble for the old couple, but they weren’t in good health either, so he tried not to be too much of a burden on them.
Jacques lives in a small market town in Wales with his new family. He goes to a private school, and they do everything they can to make him comfortable there. They never speak about his old life or his real family, because it’s safer for him if he assimilates into Welsh culture during World War II.
Jacques is a new name. He used to be Dayffyd Elias, but he’s not sure where that name came from. His foster parents are sickly and quiet so he never asks them about his past or origins.
Jacques later attends Oriel College, which is part of the University of Oxford. He studies architecture and becomes an academic specializing in European architecture. At college, he meets a woman whom he falls in love with. However, after his foster parents die and his relationship breaks down, Jacques struggles with mental health problems and suffers a nervous breakdown because he misses them so much.
Jacques travels because he wants to learn about his past and how it will affect his future. Part of that involves learning more about Prague, where he might find information on what happened to him and his parents.
Jacques meets a woman named Vera who was close to his mother. He remembers that she looked after him when his mother travelled around Europe, and he recalls some of the phrases and places that she mentioned.
Jacques learns that his mother was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He goes looking for more information on it because he wants to know what happened to her and why she never came home. In Germany, he finds a propaganda film designed by Nazis about how great the camp is. It’s very upsetting because they used Jewish actors in their films before killing them so that no one would find out about what was really going on there.
Jacques thinks he recognizes his mother in the film, and he shows it to Vera back in Prague. She tells him it’s not her. Instead, they look through old pictures from the Prague opera scene, and she identifies his mother. This gives Jacques some sense of comfort. He decides to learn more about his father next.
The story is about Jacques trying to find out who his father was. He has to go through a lot of records and pictures, but he never really finds the truth. What’s important is how Europe chooses to remember World War II because it’s impossible for us to know the truth, despite having so much information available.
The novel ends without the reader ever knowing Jacques’s father’s identity, although he travels to France in search of his father. This is a reminder that there will always be information about history that we can never obtain.
