Jennifer Teege

Was bedeutet es, mit einem Mörder verwandt zu sein, von einem Mörder abzustammen? Es ist ein seltener, aber nicht ungewöhnlicher Zustand, denn es gibt eine ganze Reihe von Mördern, Serienmördern, auf der Welt, und alle hatten Brüder, Schwestern, Familie, Nachkommen. Im Falle des psychopathischen Einzeltäters kann man jedoch sagen, dass diejenigen, die sein Blut teilen, seine Psyche nicht teilen. Der Fall der Nachkommen von Nazi-Verbrechern ist anders, weil diese Verbrecher in einem show more System gediehen, das für sie geschaffen und entwickelt wurde, so dass sie ihre natürliche Grausamkeit, ihren Hunger nach Blut, in den Dienst einer Ideologie stellen konnten.
So kann man sich das Entsetzen von Jennifer Teege, eine schwarze Deutsche, vorstellen, als sie in einer Bibliothek ein Buch über ihre Mutter findet, eine Frau, die sie zur Adoption freigab, als sie erst sieben Jahre alt war, und erfährt, dass diese Frau die Tochter von Amon Göth ist, dem Leiter des Konzentrationslagers in Płaszów bei Krakau, einem berüchtigten psychopathischen Mörder.
Von diesem Moment an ist Jennifer, die seit ihrem 20. Lebensjahr an Depressionen leidet, gezwungen, ihr ganzes Leben in Frage zu stellen, von den ersten Beziehungen zu ihrer Mutter und Großmutter bis hin zu denen zu ihrer Adoptivfamilie und ihren israelischen Freunden, denn paradoxerweise ist sie nicht nur schwarz, sondern hat in Israel studiert und spricht Hebräisch. Wirklich, ihr Großvater hätte sie erschossen.
Das Buch ist in verschiedene Abschnitte unterteilt - Jennifers Erzählung, die mit dem historischen Kontext und den Beobachtungen ihres Co-Autors vermischt ist - und hat neben dem Plus, dass es eine ausgezeichnete Lektüre ist, das enorme Verdienst, zu uns zu sprechen, die wir, unberührt von dem Grauen, leicht alles in Schwarz und Weiß sehen - zu einer Art von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus, die leicht vergessen werden: die unschuldigen Nachkommen, die auch das Schuldgefühl auf ihren Schultern tragen, das ihre Vorfahren nie empfunden haben. show less

Jennifer Teege spent her earliest years in a Catholic orphanage. Teege’s German mother had a brief relationship with Teege’s Nigerian father, but they were no longer together by the time Teege was born. At that time in Germany, it was common for single mothers who had to work to place their children in an orphanage. They still had visitation rights and often the children would spend weekends with their mothers or other family. When she was a toddler, Teege was taken in by a foster show more family. She still saw her mother and grandmother regularly until she was adopted by her foster family.

Teege’s sense of identity was upended at age 38 when she picked up a random book off of a library shelf. She found she was holding a book about her mother and her mother’s father, the Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth, the concentration camp commandant known to many from the film Schindler’s List. Teege sought out a therapist to help her deal with this new knowledge as well as the abandonment issues stemming from her relationships with her birth mother and grandmother. Also, Teege had lived and studied in Israel for several years in her twenties, and she didn’t know how to tell her Israeli friends that her grandfather had been a mass murderer of Jews.

This book is an odd mix of memoir and biography, with parts written by Teege interspersed with more objective commentary by her co-author, Nikola Sellmair. Teege contextualizes her individual psychological trauma with that of other descendants of Nazi war criminals, descendants of average Germans who sympathized with the Nazi party, and descendants of Holocaust survivors. She also reflects on generational differences between the children and the grandchildren of war criminals and Holocaust survivors. Teege’s personal journey is an example of how one reckons with one’s past and the weight of family secrets in order to contribute to a better future. show less

Each of us has a story to tell, a story so rich with detail and coincidence that, at moments, feels like fiction. Teege, a Nigerian-German adopted by a German family, married with two children, feels her world turn upside-down when she serendipitously discovers a book about her birth mother in her local bookstore. The next day, again by coincidence, there is a television documentary featuring her birth mother. These events, in and of themselves, would be odd and perhaps eerie. But what Teege show more discovers permanently shakes her to her very foundation: Teege's birth grandfather was the Amon Goeth, the sadistic Kommandant played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List who supervised the camp that hired out workers to Schindler's factory. How does she reconcile her maternal grandmother's love with that same woman's ability to live with "the butcher"? How does history change when it becomes so personal? How Teege reconciles the evils of the past with her present and ultimately uses her newfound knowledge to impact new generations is an inspiration. Highly recommended. (225) show less

rony. It’s a thing

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair; translated by Caroline Sommer (The Experiment/Workman, $24.99).

There are some stories that are simply so weird they can’t possibly be fiction, and the story of how Jennifer Teege, a 38-year-old black German woman, came to discover who her grandfather was fits that bill.

While browsing books about German history in the library, she came across one show more that referenced Amon Goeth, the notorious Nazi officer and camp commandant, made famous as a brutal psychopath in the book and film Schindler’s List.

The last name was quite familiar to her–it was her birth mother’s maiden name. The daughter of a white German woman and a Nigerian exchanged student, she had scant memories of her birth mother, spent time in an orphanage, and was eventually adopted by a white German family.

But in the book’s photos, she found proof: Her birth mother was the daughter of Amon Goeth.

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me, a best-seller in Europe, is the story of how her life changed once she knew her family history, and how it altered her perceptions of her own place as a native-born German of color. This fascinating memoir serves to tell the story of a remarkable woman–one who would have never been born, had her own grandfather succeeded.

It’s also a fairly quick read, but the issues raised–how history hovers over all of us and we are not necessarily protected by ignorance of it; life as a bi-racial person in a majority white monoculture; the discomfort we have with looking closely at the past (and the German discomfort with their Nazi history is no more uncomfortable than what happens when the U.S.’s 500-year history of slavery and white supremacy is brought up)–will stay with you long after the book is finished.

Put My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me in the category of “I finished this in one sitting.”

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less