Alexander Baron
| Alexander Baron | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Alexander Bernstein 4 December 1917 Maidenhead, Berkshire, England |
| Died | 6 December 1999 (aged 82) Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, London |
| Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter |
| Nationality | British |
| Citizenship | London |
| Notable works | From the City from the Plough (1948), Rosie Hogarth (1951), The Human Kind (1953), The Lowlife (1963), King Dido (1969) |
Alexander Baron (4 December 1917 – 6 December 1999) was a British author and screenwriter. He is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day entitled From the City from the Plough (1948) and his London novel The Lowlife (1963).
Baron's father was Barnet Bernstein, a Polish-Jewish immigrant to Britain who settled in the East End of London in 1908 and later worked as a master furrier. Baron was born in Maidenhead, where his mother Fanny had been evacuated during Zeppelin raids. The family soon returned to London, and Baron was raised in the Hackney district of London. He attended Hackney Downs School.
During the 1930s, with his schoolfriend Ted Willis, Baron was a leading activist and organiser of the Labour League of Youth (at that time aligned with the Communist Party of Great Britain). He campaigned against the fascists in the streets of the East End and edited the Young Communist League (UK) magazine Challenge. Baron became increasingly disillusioned with far left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War. He ceased to work for the Communist Party after the Hitler–Stalin Pact of August 1939, and finally broke with the communists immediately after the war.
Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army during World War II, and was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily, Italy and on D-Day. Between 1943 and late 1944, he experienced fierce fighting in the Italian campaign, Normandy and in Northern France and Belgium. In 1945 he was transferred as an Instructor to a British Army training camp in Ireland, where he received a serious head injury and was hospitalised for over six months.
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