Austerlitz is written in the first person, though the narrator is not the main character. The protagonist, Jacques Austerlitz, meets and becomes fast friends with the narrator in Antwerp in the 60's. Struggling to shape his identity, Austerlitz is looking for information about his mysterious past. He explains to the narrator that he was sent to Britain as a child refugee from Czechoslovakia in 1939. This was the Nazi era. In Wales, he was adopted by an elderly reverend and his wife who was dying.
After his adoptive parents died, Austerlitz attends Oriel College, Oxford. He studies European architecture, still obsessed with learning about his family history. About this time, he has a nervous breakdown and travels to Prague where he meets up with an old friend of his biological parents, Vera. When Austerlitz was a boy, he was close to Vera who often babysat him. She talks on and on about his parents, and his memories come flooding back. He lerans that his mom was a famous actress and opera singer. She was sent to Theresienstadt.
Austerlitz decides to go to Theresienstadt. Returning to Germany is a nightmare for him, recalling so many painful memories of the life that was stolen from him. While at Theresienstadt, he discovers a short Nazi propoganda film in which he spots his mom. Back in Prague, however, Vera says it is not his mother. She finds a photo of his mom from an anonymous picture in the Prague theatrical archives.
In Paris, Austerlitz reunites with the narrator and brings him up to speed. He's looking for information about his dad now. He tells the narrator about the first time he was in Paris, in 1959, when he suffered his very first nervous breakdown. After being released from the hospital, he was nursed to health by a girl he met in a library. Austerlitz now devotes his life to researching old European archive records which have been forgotten or corrupted due to the war. He's trying to wipe of the cobwebs of time in order to provide answer not only for himself but for all those who's personal history was lost during the Nazi regime.
