Daniel Singer (journalist)

Daniel Singer (26 September 1926 – 2 December 2000) was a Polish-American socialist writer and journalist. He was best known for his articles for ''The Nation'' in the United States and for ''The Economist'' in Britain, serving for decades as a European correspondent for each magazine.

Gore Vidal described Singer as "one of the best, and certainly the sanest, interpreters of things European for American readers", with a " Balzacian eye for human detail." Mike Davis labelled Singer "the left's most brilliant arsonist", with a talent for "setingablaze whole forests of desiccated cliches".Amazon.com: Whose Millennium?: Theirs or Ours?: Daniel Singer: Books
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Biography

Early life

Singer was born in 1926 in Warsaw, in his parents' home. His father, Bernard Singer, was to become a well-known journalist,

but was impoverished at the time of Daniel's birth. His mother, Esther Singer, was a teacher, and the child of wealthy Jewish parents. Esther, a Marxist, interested both Daniel and a young Isaac Deutscher in left-wing politics, and specifically the ideas of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg. As Daniel aged, his father became more financially successful, and the family was able to move out of the ghetto. Esther quit her job, and Daniel attended a school where he was the only Jew in his class.

Education and escape from Holocaust

In 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Daniel and his sister and mother were staying in southern France. They went to Paris in an attempt to book passage to Warsaw, but could not. Instead, after the occupation of Paris by the Germans, Daniel and his mother and sister left Paris. They went first to Anger, where Daniel went to the Lycée David d'Anger, then to Toulouse (Lyce Lakanal) and after to Marseille (Lycée Thiers). In the beginning of August 1942, the French police came to arrest them; his sister jumped through the window from the second floor, broke her leg and was sent to the hospital; Daniel was away in the countryside with some school friends and learned about his sister coming back home. With the help of the resistance, first Daniel and then his mother and sister escaped to Switzerland. Bernard Singer, meanwhile, was arrested by the Soviet Union, which had occupied eastern Poland under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Bernard was sent to the gulag for two years and released when the USSR entered the war before being allowed to leave for London.

During the middle of the Second World War, Daniel studied philosophy in Geneva. In 1944, he and the remainder of his family joined his father in London, where Daniel obtained his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of London.

Journalistic career and marriage

Singer began working for ''The Economist'' in 1948, with assistance from his old friend Isaac Deutscher, and for the ''New Statesman'' in 1949. His work focused on Poland, France, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. He remained on staff with ''The Economist'' for 19 years. In this period, he also provided radio and television commentary for the BBC
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