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Philippe Sands QC, Professor of Law in UCL’s Faculty of Laws, has won the European Book Award's Special Jury Prize for his memoir ‘Retour à Lemberg’ (Back to Lemberg). Prof Sands’ book was released in August 2017 and follows his discovery of family secrets relating to the Holocaust and his grandfather's escape, during the spread of Nazism, from Lemberg (Lviv in Ukrainian), a city at the heart of the creation of the Final Solution and the legal workings of the Nuremberg Trials.

The prize, in its twelfth year, was awarded on 5th December at the European Parliament in Brussels. In previous years, only two prizes have been awarded, recognising the best novel (ficiton) and essay (non-fiction) from publishing houses across the twenty-eight member countries of the European Union.   

Professor Sands said:

'I am thrilled and honoured, as a citizen of Europe and the world, to welcome a prize that reflects a collaborative effort by many individuals across our common European space.'

The prize was created in 2007 by the organisation Esprit d’Europe, with the aim of recognising a ‘positive vision of Europe’. This year, the presidency of the jury was given to Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski.