My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Familys Nazi Past

Synopsis

The internationally bestselling memoir hailed as authentically shocking (Library Journal) and an important documentproof that history never ends (Profil) When Jennifer Teege, a German-Nigerian woman, happened to pluck a library book from the shelf, she had no idea that her life would be irrevocably altered. Recognizing photos of her mother and grandmother in the book, she discovers a horrifying fact: her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi commandant chillingly depicted by Ralph Fiennes in Schindlers Lista man known and reviled the world over. Although raised in an orphanage and eventually adopted, Teege had some contact with her biological mother and grandmother as a child. Yet neither revealed that Teeges grandfather was the Nazi butcher of Plaszw, executed for crimes against humanity in 1946. The more Teege reads about Amon Goeth, the more certain she becomes: if her grandfather had met hera black womanhe would have killed her. Teeges discovery sends her, at age thirty-eight, into a severe depressionand on a quest to unearth and fully comprehend her familys haunted history. Her research takes her to Krakowto the sites of the Jewish ghetto her grandfather cleared in 1943 and the Plaszw concentration camp he then commandedand back to Israel, where she herself once attended college, learned fluent Hebrew, and formed lasting friendships. Teege struggles to reconnect with her estranged mother, Monika, and to accept that her beloved grandmother once lived in luxury as Amon Goeths mistress at Plaszw. Teeges story is cowritten by award-winning journalist Nikola Sellmair, who also contributes a second, interwoven narrative that draws on original interviews with Teeges family and friends and adds historical context. Ultimately, Teeges resolute search for the truth leads her, step by step, to the possibility of her own liberation.