As a Viennese star witness and avid European, Stefan Zweig writes longingly about the heyday of the old continent until it burnt in the hellfire of World War II.

A sociogram of a lost world. Made up of diaries, letters, eyewitness memories and documents from Viennese archives, Tim Bonyhady tells the story of the life of his ancestors, a Viennese Jewish dynasty, and the art scene around 1900.