“The Language Of Thieves” Book Talk

Centuries ago, a coded language developed on the road in Europe that blended words from Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Romani, Czech, and other European languages. Martin Puchner learned to speak it as a boy, only to discover as can adult that his grandfather had been a committed Nazi who despised this “language of thieves.” In his newly-released book The Language of Thieves: My Family’s Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminate, Puchner interweaves family memoir with WWII history and the mysteries of language. Join Puchner and Harvard Magazine writer Marina Bolotnikova for a conversation about this fascinating work.