 His parents returned to Poland under a repatriation agreement between Stalin and the Polish government-in-exile.Later, finding the post-war environment in Poland to be dangerously anti-Semitic, the family moved to France.The author grew up in England, and went to Kilburn Grammar School, where he was taught by "Walter Isaacson, a refugee from Nazi Germany who first taught me how to think independently" 

In December 1962, aged 17, Wistrich won an Open Scholarship to study History at Queens' College, Cambridge.