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Article: Stranger No More: In new documentary, Billy Joel reunites with European family to confront Holocaust past.
- Article from:
- The Jewish Week
- Article date:
- January 17, 2003
- Author:
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Goldman, Julia
The Jewish Week
01-17-2003
With his odes to Italian restaurants and songs about Catholic girls, most
Billy Joel fans may never have pegged the "Piano Man" for the scion of a
once-thriving German-Jewish mercantile family whose fortunes were swept
away in the Holocaust.
One unsuspecting music aficionado was Beate Thalberg. The Austrian
filmmaker discovered Joel's surprising family history while making a TV
documentary about his younger half-brother, Alexander, a celebrated
orchestra conductor in Europe. Another surprised fan was Lukas Neckermann,
whose grandfather had "Aryanized" the Joel family business in 1938.
The meeting of the younger generation of Joels and Neckermanns provides ...