My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past

I have always been interested in the Holocaust and the surrounding history. I have read several novels centered around this dark part of the world's history, but never a non-fiction piece.  My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair was a very interesting read.  It is a memoir written by Jennifer Teege with historical information and personal interviews, written by Nikola Sellmair. Typically we hear about or read about the side of the victims of the Holocaust.  This focused on the consequences on future generations of the perpetrators.

Jennifer Teege accidentally discovers a book, written by her biological mother, that reveals a shocking family history.  Her maternal grandfather was Amon Goeth, one of the Nazi movement's main perpetrators and part of the focus of the movie Schindler's List.  Jennifer is shocked and disturbed by her discovery and it sets her on a path to personal enlightenment.  Jennifer is mixed race, the product of a relationship between her German mother and her Nigerian father.  She never knew her father and was placed in a home for children and later for adoption because her mother simply could not care for her.  But she has some fond memories of her maternal grandmother. This is what Jennifer mostly has to come to terms with: the grandmother she adored, and who always doted on her, was in love with the monster that was Amon Goeth.

Mixed with Jennifer's first person account of her journey through this discovery, is Nikola Sellmair's history lesson.  This makes the book a little choppy, but each of Nikola's short pieces is directly related to the section written by Jennifer directly before it.  Included are personal interviews with some of Jennifer's friends and family, and interesting information on the sociology of adopted children, and the descendants of members of the Nazi movement. It is a necessary piece of the puzzle that helps the reader understand not only the history of the time, but also the ramifications for future generations.

Overall this was a very interesting book of how a woman comes to grips with a past she didn't realize existed within her family, but also how she finally comes to understand why she was put up for adoption and that the family she never felt fit, was truly her family all along.  But it is also a look at how this history has been handled within the European community. The theme of how the later generations dealt with their disturbing family history was something I had never really considered.  Jennifer Teege is my own age.  There is a whole generation of people my own age whose grandparents took part in one of the darkest parts of our history.  While I understood that my own parents were babies when this all took place, and that is part of the reason this time period has always fascinated me, I never took it one more generation forward or backward and certainly not from the Nazi sympathizer side of the story. This memoir was informative and eye opening, and I am glad that Jennifer Teege shared her story.

Happy Reading!