Black German woman learns a shocking family secret: Her grandfather was a Nazi

[mfcorey1]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/29/world/my-grandfather-would-have-shot-me/index.html


Atlanta (CNN)Jennifer Teege thought she knew the hard truths of her life: that her German mother left her in the care of nuns when she was 4 weeks old, and that her biological father was Nigerian, making her the only black child in her Munich neighborhood.

But the hardest truth came to her years later on a warm August day in Hamburg when she walked into the central library and picked up a red book with a black-and-white picture of a woman on the cover. It was titled "I Have to Love My Father, Don't I?"

As Teege, then 38, flipped through the pages, she felt she'd been caught in a furious storm that had suddenly come from nowhere.

She had unearthed the ghastly family secret.

She looked at the names of people and places in the book and realized that the woman on the cover was her biological mother.
And the father in the title was none other than Amon Goeth, the sadistic Nazi who was commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland. Many came to know about Amon Goeth through Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of him in the 1993 movie "Schindler's List."

Teege doesn't know why she was drawn to the book. But on that day, Teege learned that she -- a black German woman who'd gone to college in Israel and befriended the descendants of Holocaust survivors, who now had a successful career and a loving family -- was the granddaughter of a monster.

It was a moment that cut her life in two. There was the "before," when she knew nothing of her family's sinister past, and "after," when she was forced to live with that truth.

In the library, Teege grew cold knowing she was connected by blood to a man responsible for the deaths of 8,000 Jews. She checked out her mother's book, lay down on a bench outside and called her husband to come fetch her.

[Odin2005]

1. I know a woman who had one grandfather who was a Nazi and another...

...grandfather who survived the Holocaust.

That must be an awkward family reunion...

[doc03]

2. Her father was black and a Nazi? Don't Nazis hate everyone except

whites?

[tblue37]

3. No, apparently her grandfather, not her father, is the Nazi being referred to. nt

[doc03]

6. Well like they say you can't pick your relatives. Arnold's father was

a card carrying Nazi.

[mwrguy]

4. It's heartening to see miscegenation in formerly nazi families and countries

I hope her grandfather can see this from his place in hell.

[philosslayer]

5. I don't know why this is so horrible

Honestly. We are not responsible for the sins of our ancestors. I don't think i'm going out on a limb in saying that ALL of us have ancestors who have done horrible things. So what. its an interesting genealogical fact, but has no impact on us in the present day, nor should it.

[Blue_Tires]

7. An earlier link from you-know-who...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023776568