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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy Nazi grandfather, Amon Goeth, would have shot me
Jennifer Teege was shocked to discover her grandfather was a Nazi concentration camp commandant. Her mother never told her, and as a child she never knew her father - a Nigerian student with whom her mother had a brief affair. This is her story.
Five years ago in northern Germany, in Hamburg, I was in the central library and I came across a book. It was wrapped in a red cover and for some reason I was immediately drawn to it.
The title, translated into English, was I Have to Love My Father, Right? and it had a small picture of a woman on the front who looked faintly familiar.
So I took the book and quickly went through it. There were a lot of photos and as I looked at the book I felt something was wrong.
At the end, the author summed up some details about the woman on the cover and her family, and I realised they were a perfect match with what I knew about my own biological family.
So at that point I understood that this was a book about my family history.
The woman in the picture was my mother, and her father was Amon Goeth, the commandant of Plaszow concentration camp near Krakow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24347798
gopiscrap
(23,761 posts)I was born in Germany, family name was Stein, I have lived the Nazi actions all my life. My mom was ill all her life, had a stroke when I was 15, lived with American prejudice as a child immigrating, but my story doesn't even compares with yours!
lunatica
(53,410 posts)JustAnotherGen
(31,828 posts)I don't think this was ever brought up in the documentary her mom appeared in with one of Goeth's survivors/victims . . .
You might be able to catch it on Netflix too . . . http://www.pbs.org/pov/inheritance/film_description.php
I agree with her though - it's easier to learn that stuff as a kid and integrate it into your life. I.E. My great great grandfather was an Irish immigrant - who rose to the rank of Colonel in the Confederate army and was a contemporary of Longstreet. When you walk into your black grandmother's home and she shows your her grand daddy's uniform, the MS regiment flag, the old clippings and such . . . as a little kid it becomes a 'part' of you.
How chilling though - her own grandfather would indeed have shot her for WHAT she is.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Jaw-dropping...
malaise
(269,024 posts)Fascinating
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)MicaelS
(8,747 posts)The only I think could top that are the great-nephews of Adolf Hitler.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/nyregion/24patchogue.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1348850/Hitlers-lost-relatives-found-on-Long-Island-in-terror-of-identification.html