Transcripts For CSPAN2 QA 20151231

Cspan jennifer guest, in your book, you wrote, i am the granddaughter of a mass murderer. How hard was that . Guest to find out was very difficult. Now, to live with it is ok because a long time passed and i came to terms with the fact. Today, i think that yes, it is a big responsibility, but its not a burden anymore. Cspan your book, which is called, my grandfather would have shot me, has all of the characters in your life and i want to put on the screen what theres the book on the screen, but i also want to put on the screen the chart that shows your family and have you briefly explain, and well come back and talk about it, there you can see up at the top is your grandfather on the right, amon goeth. Who was he . Guest my grandfather was a war criminal. Hes known to millions of people because he was depicted in the move, schindlers list, but he was not a movie character. I mean, he was a real person and he was put on trial in poland after the war. He was convicted of the murder of thousands of people and he was hanged after the war in 1946, very close to the former concentration camp in plaszow. Cspan let me go back to that chart and show your grandmother, and what was her relationship to amon goeth, Ruth Irene Kalder . Guest my grandmother was a women that met my grandfather while she was working for oscar schindler. They he introduced her to him, and they she was smitten by my grandfather my biological grandfather from very beginning, and they lived together in plaszow and even after the war, and my grandmother still she loved him very much. She took on his name, although they hadnt been married, but they she was more, i would say, like, she was sort of his wife. Cspan you mentioned, plaszow. What is that . Guest plaszow is the concentration camp. Its concentration camp that was run by my grandfather and my grandmother and my grandfather, you know, stayed there for a period of, i think, yes, several years together. Cspan go back to the chart. Right below that is a woman whose name is Monika Hartwig. Who is she . Guest Monika Hartwig is my biological mother. She married and this her married the name that she took on when she was married, but shes also monika she was born as monika goeth, and shes the daughter of ruth irene and amon. Cspan did you know her . Guest yes, shes my biological mother and i she gave me up for adoption, but we were in contact for yes, for were in contact for yes, for the first years of my life. She gave me to an orphanage when i was four weeks old, but we stayed in contact. And only when i was seven years old, we lost contact because i was adopted by a white German Family and thereafter havent seen her for many, many years. But until seven years, we stayed in contact. Cspan have you seen her in the last seven years . Guest yes, i did. So. Cspan where does she live . Guest she lives in germany. Cspan where was she born . Guest she was born in germany. Cspan lets go back to the chart one more time, and off to the side there, and we dont have a name for this, is your biological father and he was nigerian. Guest yes, hes nigerian. Cspan where is he now . Guest hes also living in germany. He was a student when he came to germany and i would talk about it a bit more later on when we talk about the family structure. Actually, my biological parents met in the household of my grandmother. He came as a student to germany and then he went back to nigeria for a while, but today, hes living in germany. Hes married. Hes married to a german teacher and they have more kids. So i have a bunch of half siblings. Cspan when was the first time you met your biological father . Guest in my 20s. I was never really interested in my father maybe because as a child i grew up with my with the knowledge of who my biological mother and grandmother was, but my father, i only knew his name because the name was on my birth certificate and somehow maybe because i never met him as a child i wasnt ever interested in getting to know him. Only when i was 20 and i started site analyzers. I mean, i suffered depression for a while and i became interested in getting to know more about the paternal side about my whole biological family. Then i was in my mid20s we met each other briefly. Cspan the last thing on the chart is and i know its not the actual name, but your adopted parents, when did they adopt you and how long did you live with them . Guest as i said, i came to orphanage very when i was very small, four weeks old, and i stayed in the orphanage until i was three. It was an orphanage actually for babies. So when i was three, i had to leave the orphanage and one tried to find foster families for the kids in the orphanage. And i was lucky because they had an inferior ph they were looking for a child, and somehow i came into the family. I stayed there as a foster child for three years, and when i was seven they adopted me, and this was also the moment when cuts with my mother my biological mother were ties with my biological mother got cut. My its a bit complicated, but i want to add it. My parents separated before i was born, and my mother, she married a man who was abusive. So she was in an abusive relationship. And one of the reasons why my adopted parents decided to cut ties was that it was simply not a safe and good environment, the circumstances were really difficult. So they wanted i didnt have a, you know a quiet and healthy childhood and this was the reason why they cut ties. Cspan youre married . When did you get married . Guest its always a bit embarrassing because im so bad with numbers. I think i married 10 years ago, but we are together much longer. Cspan and is. Guest fourteen years, i think. Cspan and hes a german . Guest yes. Cspan where did you meet him . Guest i met him in germany and i met him to my work, was actually my boss. So classical story. We fell in love and today, we have two beautiful children done together. Cspan how old are they . Guest i cant tell you the exact day date the age because i try not to give too much information for just for security reasons, and also, i incognito so when they are older they can decide for themselves whether they want to share their story with the public. But i can tell you that they are in school in germany. They are in the beginning of their high school education. I dont know which grade it is here in the u. S. Yes. Cspan you leave where now . Guest in germany, in hamburg, but im traveling a lot, so i would say i live all over the world. Cspan let me show you some video. I know youve seen this. This is from 2006 and its a documentary done by james moll and is called, behind the scenes of inheritance. Lets watch a little bit of this, well see your mother in here, and well find out how he did this documentary. 2003 i was producing a documentary for the schindlers list dvd, a documentary about schindler survivors, and there was a photograph of amon goeth, who was the commander of plaszow. We needed the rights to the photograph and they were owned by monika, his daughter. So i simply called her to ask for the rights to use the photograph in the documentary. We talked for quite a while and suddenly in the middle of the conversation she said, you know, im not my father. So immediately, i thought i want to interview this woman. In schindlers list, ray fiennes portrayed amon goeth and there are those scenes where hes standing on the balcony of the villa overlooking the camp and hes holding his rifle and hes shooting at the prisoners of the camp. Thats monikas father and when she was 11 years old, she discovered the truth about who her father was. He was a nazi. He was a concentration camp commandant and he was responsible for the murder of thousands of jews. Cspan why did you want to write a book about this . Guest it was a decision that i did not make immediately after i found out who my biological grandfather was. It was something that i decided over a long period when i when i myself understood more, i thought that what happened to me is such an extraordinary story and its a story that one needs to share. And this was one of the main reasons why i decided to write it down and to share it with the public, but there was another reason. The reason was that i came across a quote by batina gury ph and batina gury ph is the grandniece of gury was the chief commander of the air force the German Air Force during the nazi era, and she and her brother both decided to and when i read this, i was stunned because i thought this was so utterly wrong. So i thought its important to set a different and to set a positive example because you yourself decide who you want to be, you know . Its not something that is connected to genes. So this was one of the major reasons why i decided to write the book. Cspan you published your this book first overseas in 2013. It was named, amon, or amon and now, the book in the United States is, my grandfather would have shot me. Why did they change the name . Guest the title was, amon, but the subtitle was always, my grandfather would have shot me. I think this was one of the reasons that its for the u. S. Market they decided to do it because the name, amon is not so known. I myself preferred amon because, first of all, its more literal name like more, like, literature, and the book is nonfiction book, but for me, it is a yes, its a book like more in the belletristic field. But the reason why i or we decided in germany to publish was, amon, the name is so striking because in our family, names play a very, very important role. And when you notice, the name of my mother is monika and the nickname of my grandfather, my biological grandfather, was monique ph and there are some other aspects. For example, the name is a jewish name. Also, the name of my grandmother is a biblical name, and theres another point because my i have a halfsister and she gave the name, amon not only the name, amon, also jewish name, but a combination of two names to her son. So it shows that the Family History is transmitted into the next generation, into the fourth generation. All these reasons were for the sole striking that i thought amon is the right title, but when you want to sell a book, you know, you also have to look at the market and for me, its important to spread so if this message is spread with this title, im fine with it. And the title is also interesting because the new title, my grandfather would have shot me because it makes when you look at me, you see the color of my skin. Im black. So you first think the title is because im i look so differently, but what is more important is the inside. Will see that my character is very different, and this is also why i think the new title is a good decision. Cspan another thing you tell us about yourself in the book is that youre 6 feet tall. Guest yes, and i have a high heels. Cspan and you have high heels on. What impact is that high in your life that youre, you know you stick out in a crowd . Guest i always sticked out, you know . When i when i grew up, i grew up in a in a neighborhood in germany where i was the only black child. So for me being someone who is not average is so normal. When i walk around in the street, i dont notice anymore that people look at me. Its funny because my husband, hes also very tall, but only when im in the surrounding for example, in asia where people are very small and it goes with its really intense that people look at us. I notice it, but normally no, i just, you know im so used to it. Cspan go back to your grandfather, amon goeth. If we were to follow him or and he died at age 37 if we were to follow him around and watch the awful things that he did, what would we see . Guest i dont understand. Cspan i say if we were to follow him around when he was alive and he was the head of this concentration camp, what and he was did so many bad things, what would we see that he did . Shooting people, the dogs and all that . Guest yes, you would see a tremendously cruel person, a person who yes, who was i mean, he was capable of he had dogs. He had two dogs. He called them, ralph and rolph and he trained them to tear a human apart. I think this sums it up really good. He was a person who had there was a pleasure that he felt when he when he when he when he killed people, and this is, yes, something that when youre normal if you dont have this aspect in your personality, it is very, very difficult to grasp. And i remember in the very beginning when i found out when i discovered who my biological grandfather was, this aspect of his personality, the cruelty was one of the, you know, facts. This was most difficult for me to somehow come to terms with it because its something that is so far from what you can imagine how people can be. Now, maybe you know when we have the political situation of today and i just was just thinking about isis people, you know, who slaughter other people, then it somehow gets normal, but this is not normal, you know . This is something that you cant you cant treat people like this. Its something and i think within a person or within yourself, that should be theres a humanity, you know . This is an aspect and that when we look at the nazi era and my grandfather, just got lost. Cspan when he was hanged after the war in 1946, who hanged him . Guest he was put on trial actually by the polish government. He was not at the nuremberg trial. He was extradited to poland. He was extradited together with the commandant of auschwitz with hess. Theres an interesting detail what i read when they arrived in poland and they wanted to stone amon goeth, you would imagine that they want to stone hess because hess was the one whos more known. Cspan rudolf hess . Guest rudolf hess, yes, but probably because of the cruelty, the way he really shoot them himself people he himself killed people and that the mass wanted to stone him. Cspan let me show some video because in the end when he was hanged, it was one of the Stranger Things to see. Its on video and here was the end of your grandfather when he was when he was put to death. Were not going to show the last part when he was actually hanged. Youve i assume youve seen that before . What was your reaction to that when you saw it . Guest i saw the execution just hours after i discovered the biography about my mother in the library. So i was already in shock. And when i saw the execution for the first time, i did not expect that it would not work out because this is something that is so serial. And i remember myself sitting in front of the tv and though i was i didnt know whether to cry or to laugh, not to cry because of i was sad, but this is something that was yes, it was just not real. Interestingly, i read that today i dont know, maybe this is just something that is invented, but historians, they try to figure out whether this was really my grandfather and some say it was someone else. It was, i think, his name is ludwig fisher. Ludwig fisher. I did some research. I dont know. Maybe its just a theory that its not right. I always when i watched it i thought it was my grandfather my biological grandfather. Well, someone asked me what i think or what i think that he deserved to be hanged, its a very difficult question. I think he did so much evil so he needed a punishment. Im against the Death Penalty. Im a person who truly believes that the Death Penalty is something that you have to be very careful because if you make a mistake, you cant change it. I think my grandfather deserved the highest punishment that you can get, yes. Cspan how many people died in the concentration camp around where plaszow and poland is . Guest i dont know. Cspan how did you but in your book you talk about auschwitz and that whole area that there were a Million People . Guest thousands, but also if you look at the trial of my grandfather, he was put on trial for thousands of jews, but he also was, for example, involved in the eviction of the ghetto in krakow. So i dont know how you can sum it up. And i also, you know, think the number is not relevant because its too many anyhow. Its thousands, but i dont i cant give you an exact number. I dont know. Cspan what did you discover about why they all hated jews so much . Guest you mean the nazis . Cspan what was the reason . Guest well, thats a very, very difficult question. I think it was something when you look at the nazi era, there was a very interesting experiment that was done actually here in the United States after the war. The milgram experiment and there and tried to find out why people, yes, treat other people the way they treated it in the nazi era. And i think it was not only the jews. I mean, there were also people who were killed, people who did not somehow had the ideology the nazi ideology. It was also the gypsies, for example, but especially the jews. I think the system because the system said so, people followed the authority and there are a lot of people who did not reflect. They were just following the authority. And, for example, if you look at my grandmother, my grandmother must have been an anti semite. I mean, she lived in plaszow. She lived with my grandmother. She supported the system. But after the war, i told you my parents met in the household of my grandmother and my mother my grandmother somehow mother my grandmother somehow adopted a different point of view. So it is so weird. I cant give you an answer why this happened. Cspan james moll who did the documentary, inheritance, and i know you watched that some years ago, here is another and it was run here on pbs and part of it was also run on the bbc, but here is your mother talking about her father, which is your grandfather. I asked my grandmother, grandmother, do i have a father, too . And she said, but monika, every child has a father. And i asked my mother and said, wheres my father . And she said, like millions of men, he died for his country and hes dead and shut down. I believed her. I didnt know why i shouldnt believe her. For me, he was everything. He was a great man. He was a soldier and everybody told me if my father had been alive, he was such a nice man and he would do everything for me. Cspan whats your mom like . Guest my mom is a difficult person. I mean, shes very typical for the Second Generation. My mother was always haunted by the past and i think because it was her father, it was very, very difficult for her to separate. And when she looked at her appearance, the photos that weve seen now, they show her she looks a bit happier than the other pictures in the way i somehow perceive her, but she has you see on like, its she go and rocks a bit like this. Like, the weight is on her shoulder and she cant somehow leave the past behind. I think because its the father and the identification with the parents for everyone if you look at psychology is so strong. She could never somehow find her own life. She is haunted by the past until today. Second generation. Theres another famous example. Its nicholas frank. I dont know whether you heard about him. Hes the son of hans frank who was the deputy of hitler in occupied poland, and he has a photo of his father. He was also hanged with the broken neck in his wallet and he looks at it, his face, every day. So they go on and they cant leave the past behind, but they live with it. They feel guilty very often and yes, this is something that i think is a problem for the Second Generation and i also think its a bit of a problem for my mother. Cspan you theres a lot of examples of what youre talking about and heres one on video of Katrin Himmler who is Heinrich Himmlers great niece, and he was one of the people, of course, most directly responsible for the holocaust. So lets watch what she has to say about the relationship the family has to, you know, an infamous father like this. begin video clip speaking in Foreign Language . [speaking in Foreign Language] cspan have you run into the same thing where people dont like the name, goeth . They just want they want it to go away . Guest no. No. For me, the name, goeth, i didnt have a relationship to the name, goeth, because it was just for me was a random name. When i found out about who my mother was, about the family path, this was the first time that i understood that goeth was a name that was connected to amon goeth, to the nazi past. So i dont, you know, have this feeling. I think thats when i watched the video i noticed something and Katrin Himmler, shes married actually to jewish guy today. Those are the descendants of perpetrators who knew from the very beginning about the familys past, and for me it is very different because i found out by coincidence. And i had a life before, and i also had a strong identity before. So i never only identified myself by being a goeth, the granddaughter of amon goeth. I was more identified myself with being jennifer, i would say. The second name i changed. I changed because of the adoption. I changed it because of my marriage. I was always jennifer, and therefore, i think it is far more its easier for me or it was easier for me in the long run to find my own identity. For all these people who grow up with their heritage with the difficult heritage, it was almost impossible to leave the past behind. And if i say to leave the past behind, it doesnt mean that i forget, you know, but i want to set a different example and so far that i think, you know, just if you look back, it doesnt help anyone. The last word of my book is hope. I think you have to look forward. In my personal case, for example, i have two children, you know, and i never had a real mother myself. So when i was so depressed, i couldnt be a good mother to them, and this is one of the reasons why i decided, no, i have to go in a different direction. And what i did was i traveled to krakow and in krakow, the former concentration camp is not existing anymore. What you have there today, theres only a statue, a memorial where you can go. And when i understood that i have to leave the past behind, but i dont want to forget, i felt that it would be a good thing to lay there flowers, to lay flowers, to have a symbolic act somehow to go on with my life, but not to forget and to honor the victims, but to go on and live in the future and try to see what i can do with my story. And somehow turn it around, you know, make something positive out of it. Cspan you tell us in the book you were born in 1970. If i do the math correctly, that makes you 45 . Cspan when did you find out about the fact that your great your grandfather was amon goeth . Guest i was 38. Cspan and you lead off the book with it, but where did where did it happen and how did it happen . Guest it happened on a sunny day in august and cspan what city . Guest it was in hamburg. Its still its still my hometown. It was regular, an ordinary day. I didnt suspect anything. In the morning, i got up and my kids were much younger then. I drove them to preschool and i was in the library. Its a huge library with thousands of books and i was there already for a while, maybe half an hour and looking for books. I was in the psychology department. This is also interesting because it was not in the history department. And suddenly, i saw a book with a red cover that grabbed my attention. So i just could read the spine and on the spine there was the title and it said, i have to love my father, dont i . And there was the name of the author. It was a journalist. I didnt know the name. His name was matias ketler. I took the book out of the shelf and i started at first, i looked at the cover quickly and there was a small photograph, a black and white photograph and of a woman, a portrait, and there was a subtitle and it said, the life story of monika goeths daughter of the concentration Camp Commander of schindlers list. And suddenly, you know, there was a spark of suspicion because goeth, i knew the name goeth, but still, it was too early. I started leaving to the book and first very slowly, but then fast and faster. The book contained text, but also photographs, and there was one photograph that reminded me of my mother. It was a women with dark hair and there was another picture, and this was actually even picture that was yes, it was a picture of my it was a picture of a woman in a flowery dress, and i had one single picture of my grandmother for all these years that i kept and the woman on the photo had the exact same dress. And under the photo there was a caption and it said, ruth irene. And then i continued. I skimmed the book and in the end, there was a summarization of biographical details, the name of the woman, the birth date, where she was born and so on and so forth, and at this very moment i understood that it was not a random book that i was holding in hand. Cspan lets go back to the chart we have of how everybody is connected and the picture, of course, at the top at the right is amon goeth who is your grandfather. Then Ruth Irene Kalder, who was never really married to him, but took his name after he was killed in 1946 by the polish people, she committed suicide in 1983 and how did you know her . When did you know her . Guest i know as a child, she and my mother, they would visit me in the orphanage. I would visit them at their house. Not often, sporadically, but ive seen her as a child, and this is how i knew her. And i only had very good fond memories of her. Due to the fact that my mother was in an abusive relationship, she was also someone, you know, as a child i did not only like her, but she also provided me with safety. Maybe theres also a strength, a bond. So when i discovered that she was not only my grandmother, the person that i knew as a child until i was seven, but also a woman who was capable of living outside a concentration camp with a man as sadistic as amon goeth. This was a major problem for me. Its somehow really and yes, plunged into a crisis because i couldnt bring these two in aspects of her personality together. Cspan why did she commit suicide . Guest there was a, i think well, two reasons one reason was she was really, really sick. She had lung disease and she knew that she would die quite soon, but what might have triggered her death was there was a documentary done by a british journalist, john blair is his name, and payne datute ph , my grandmother, the documentary was done actually for the movie, schindlers list and it there was some of people of the of the past, like my grandmother, but also, for example, the wife of oscar schindler. They interviewed. They wanted to collect the voices, the statements, and john blair interviewed my grandmother and after he left the apartment, my grandmother took an overdose of sleeping pills and killed herself. She left a suicide note and i when i found out, i so desperately wanted to get a transcript of the of the of the interview the journalist did because in the suicide note she said nothing about the war, about the past, and i thought, i dont know. I know one particular time i recall her saying with her head out, if i could, i would send you home, but i cant. Cspan now, you tell us tell us in the book that helen jonasrosenzweig lives in florida, has married. Have you talked to her . Guest not yet, but i met her daughter by coincidence. I had a reading event in close to new york and she was in the audience. I didnt know. I never contacted helen because i didnt want to interfere with my mother. I thought, you know, maybe she doesnt feel comfortable with it. I always wanted to meet her, but so i was really excited when she was in the audience. She asked me a question and hopefully i will meet helen in the future. I have an event scheduled that she might attend. Its going to be really, really interesting. I wanted to Say Something about the video because what she said about my grandmother, i think that doing nothing also makes you guilty. It is, you know when you have a car accident, to give you a different example, and you just drove by and you dont help, this is a criminal act. Cspan she though, helen rosenzweig, plays a role in your book. Tell us about what her relationship was to your grandfather. Guest she was a maid in the household of my biological grandfather and she lived in the house. And in the movie in her terms they chose the encounter between my mother and helen, theres a scene where shes standing in the house and she had to work for my grandfather and she was in constant fear because every day couldve been the last day of her life. I think the relationship they had was she was the servant and to obey to the rules. Cspan and how was there there was another woman though that also was a housekeeper. How cruel was he to them . Guest they both lived in the house, both. Cspan both jewish . Guest they were both jews, yes, and i dont know. I think in the movie, schindlers list by oscar by steven spielberg, theres a scene, you know, that he somehow approached one of the housekeepers also in an intimate way. One says that was more fiction than reality. I dont know. I think he didnt have really a relationship because he was simply not capable of seeing them as a true human being. He saw them as people he could treat the way he wanted to do so, and this is also the testimony that helen gave that he was she was treated very, very, very badly, but both by my grandmother, by closing her eyes, and by my biological grandfather who would beat her, would beat her down the stairs. I mean, to live with constant fear, this is something, you know, you cant imagine. This is something so cruel even if you dont shoot someone, the circumstances in the house were beyond what you can, i think, yes, we wont imagine. Cspan when did you first see schindlers list . Guest i saw the movie first in israel ironically because i have a very special, yes, bond with israel and the jewish people without knowing about my familys past when i was in younger when i was in the beginning of my 20s. I moved to israel and i lived there. I lived there for a couple of years. I speak fluent hebrew, and i studied middle eastern politics and history in israel. So i saw the movie in i had a shared flat, an apartment with a roommate, and i saw the move in israel, a bit later than the others. It was already out for a while, so i have heard some comments about the movie and i saw it in my flat. I thought it was very moving. Cspan theres a theres a tiny exert here about 30 seconds with ray fiennes who plays, amon goeth, your grandfather, in the movie and heres the famous shot from the balcony where hes got a machine gun in his hand. Has your mother watched this . Guest im sure she watched cspan has your mother watched this . Guest im sure she watched it a couple of times. The first that shed seen the movie i read that she i mean, she knew who her father was always, but she thought that her father was someone who was she didnt know really what he was doing. Then she got more and more information first and when she was 11 years old, later she got information about a jewish inmate of plaszow, the concentration camp, but seeing the movie for the first time plunged her into an enormous crisis because its different when you read something or if you hear something. The movie is very people say its very close to reality, then she, i think, for the first time she really realized what happened, what kind of person he was. Cspan lets go back again to the chart so we can keep track of all the people on it, and we talked about your grandfather, your grandmother, your mother, and then your father earlier who was a nigerian. Whats his reaction to this book . Guest i feared with them that i wrote a book, a couple of weeks before the book came shared out. As i said, we had not been in contact for a long time. I saw him for the first time when i was in my mid20s, then there was a period where we had no contact. And then i we reconnected because for me, it was so important that he wouldnt find out by coincident that id tell him, you know, i wrote a book and that he doesnt find out by himself. We didnt talk a lot about the past because this time with my father, i didnt want to make the same mistakes that i did with my mother. I really wanted to concentrate our relationship on the present. I wanted to get to know my father, wanted to get to know his side of the nigerian side. I wanted to know more about how he grew up. So its not something that we constantly talk about. I think that yes, he thinks about it and hes a very educated man, but its not something that is a major part of our relationship. Cspan how many times have you told this story . Do you have any idea . Guest not very often because im in the public. I talk about the book, i talk about my story, and its so different to the first years because after i found out about the book, i was i was unable to speak about it. And now, you think it is easy. It is easy because such a long time passed, but you have to know that after i found out about the secret, the toxic family secret, for the first half year i didnt talk to anyone. I talked to my husband and to my therapist. After half a year, i first talked to my adoptive parents. After one and a half years, i first talked to my biological mother. After more than two years, i shared the secret with my jewish friends. And now seven years passed. So until the book was published until i was the first time in the media i think there were 10 or 12 people i ever talked about it. Cspan what was the reception in germany when you started talking about the book . Guest it was received the book was received very well. When i made the decision to go public, then i knew i cant go back and i tried to yes, to share everything in this aspect of my life. There are a lot of different aspects that i keep private. For example, the age of my children, stuff like this, but i want people really to understand what happened. I want them somehow to go with me and understand the conflict. And since i think this is done in a way that people can identify, find themselves in the book, the reception was very, very good. And in germany, yes, the subject or the topic of nazism is something that is its such a part of german identity. Its a in school, its mandatory. We are educated about the holocaust, that even by the educational system now i was approached because they want to use the book in schools. So this i think this is wonderful. It couldnt be a better result. Cspan you name your husband, is getz. You name your kids as claudius and linus, i believe. Are those the real names . Guest no, also false. Cspan on any in any case . Guest yes. Cspan and when you travel around, why are you worried about security . Guest well, because you never know, you know . There are people out there i was in the beginning when i went public for the first time i didnt know also, for example, from the white being of a white part, but what happened, you know, in germany, we have a problem with neo nazis and i just, you know, didnt want to take any risk. Cspan you tell us several times in the book that you had a nervous breakdown or youve had depression. Whats that i hate these kind of questions, but what does it feel like to have depression . Can you describe it . Guest yes, i tried to when you well, i just turn the question back. Did you ever yourself feel like you have a day that is a bad day . Yes, probably. Know . You feel like theres something wrong, but depression is when its not a day, its not a week, it can last for month. And i described it once with a cloud. Its, like, a cloud comes and its a cloud that will not disappear and its a dark cloud. And somehow youre not able to function. Youre not able to get up. In my case, i wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep so badly and but depression can also have very different symptoms. Depression often leads to addiction, you know, to drug abuse or stuff like this. So i suffered depression not only i think because of the toxic family secret, also because of the early deprivation because when you are given up in such an early age, this is difficult for a child, but i today, i overcome the depression and i think its due to the fact that the toxic power of the family secret was lifted because if you have something that you dont know, it is still there. It exists on a subconscious level and this is so, so, so dangerous because this ultimately will always lead to some depressive elements in your personality because you dont find yourself. You cant find your true inner self and you need to have a feeling of who you are for everyone. This is not just true for me. Identity, to find your own self, to a have a true feeling of your identity is crucial for everyone. Cspan when was the last time you were depressed . Guest depressed . I think a few years ago. I had a bad day just a couple of weeks ago. Cspan but not the depression that you had . Guest no. Cspan in what year did you have your nervous breakdown . Guest the nervous breakdown, oh, thats i was diagnosed as post traumatic syndrome, you know, after i found the book. It was seven years ago. And then i had a period where i had to recover. Today, i would say i dont suffer depression anymore because the im not afraid that the dark cloud would come back because theres nothing unsolved, you know . Its i compared it once with a puzzle. My problem was and again, i wouldnt speak more general if you have in your life a lot of pieces of, like, in a puzzle, you need somehow framework or a frame where you can put it because otherwise, you dont you know, you dont youre not stable. And today, i have the frame and when you have a frame and you can put in the pieces, you dont youre not afraid that everything breaks down. Its not like a house that is built on sand, you know . You just take out one brick and everything falls into pieces. No. If you have a proper structure, if you have a Foundation Ph , then you have a good chance that depression will not come back. Cspan you tell us in your book that your grandfather was raised in a catholic family. Guest yes. Cspan and there are other references to religion in there. Whats happened to you in religion . Guest well, im not a religious person, but i always say im a believer and im a true believer. I think that when you look at the story, you can ask yourself was this coincident or was it faith, and i also ask myself, for example, why did i go to israel . Why did i chose so many options to live and study in israel . Why do i speak hebrew . I cant give an answer because it always depends how you look at life. If you look at life backwards, then you see no, there is something that someone holds things together. If you look at it into the future, you make it certain without cspan go back to your friends in israel and you tell the story in the book on how you eventually went to plaszow in poland with jewish kids and told them your story, but what was the reaction of your Close Friends that you lived with and knew very well in israel when you told them about this story . Guest i didnt tell them for long time. As i said, it took me more than two years until i could open up not because i was afraid that they would reject me, you know . I was so afraid what my revelation would trigger within their families because i lived and studied in israel, so i have, you know, a profound understanding somehow of whats going on and about the a bit about the jewish soul. As i said, im not a religious, but im a believer and i think every religion can has a is there. And so i have a lot of knowledge about the jewish religion and about what happened in the families of my friends, but i didnt know exactly where they lost, for example, their relatives. So i was scared. Maybe some had lost relatives even in plaszow. So how could i get how would they accept it, not accept me, but accept the fact . So eventually i understood that although i was so scared, i had to share because this is what friendship is about. If you have a friend, you share everything or you try to share the important things in your life, and i told them. And it was heartbreaking because what happened was they were full of empathy and they did not cry for themselves or for their families. They cried for me. Cspan i dont know if you want to answer this or not, but you dedicate this book for y, the letter y. Whos y . Guest theres a reason why i only wrote y. I will not tell it to you now. I will tell it to you afterwards, but i can say its a Family Member that is very dear to me. Cspan and you also said you had a period of time where you couldnt stand the smell of beer. Why . Guest i think it was in connection to my Early Childhood experiences. The man, my cspan and you also said you had a period of time where you couldnt stand the smell of beer. Why . Guest i think it was in connection to my Early Childhood experiences. The man, my mother married after she separated from my biological father, was abusive and he had a problem with alcohol. So yes, this reminded me a lot of what i experienced in my childhood. Cspan how much and ive been on your website, which is jenniferteege. Com, i believe; is that right . And it looks like you are traveling forever in this country and australia and back to europe and back to this country. Why are you doing this . Guest because people invite me and readers write me and people talk to me and they say it is good that you share this story. Share it with a wider audience. And i think the message should be spread and its not spread all over the world. So hopefully a lot of people will read the book and maybe it triggers the changes something for them. Cspan how hard was it to get this book published in the first place and who did it . And this is an organization called, the experiment in this country, but who was it in germany . Guest its a long story. I have a good publisher in germany, but i when i first approached a publisher about the story, they didnt want to publish it. Cspan why . Guest i dont know. Maybe one of the reasons was that i had a one of the major german newspapers with whom i was in contact and they wanted cccccto have an interview to have an interview c double interview with my biological mother and i told them that i dont think this is a good idea. Cspan were out of time. The name of this book is, my grandfather would have shot me, a black woman discovers her families nazi past. Jennifer guest, thank you for joining us. Guest my pleasure. Booktv brings you three days of nonfiction books and authors. Republican party in the 1892 election. Grover cleveland was in office. They saw the country descendent to a deep depression. Republicans think the election of 1896 is going to be theirs. He wants to be the nominee but he is not the front runner. Following afterwards at 11 0v as we attend a book party. Sunday on indepth, well be be live with your calls, emails, and tax from noon until 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Book tv this new years weekend, three days of nonfiction books and authors on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Coming up on cspan twos book tv, a look at science and technology, well start with michelles book, who book, who built that . About american invention. Two others discussed their recent works and kevin ashtons book on how to fly force. After that a discussion by evolutionary beth shapiro. Next,s conservative blogger