1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,000 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio high 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,600 Speaker 1: Family Secrets Listeners. It's Danny here to share a bit 3 00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:11,640 Speaker 1: of exciting news with you before today's episode. We just 4 00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:14,520 Speaker 1: found out that our podcast is a nominee for the 5 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:18,280 Speaker 1: Webby People's Voice Award in the category of Best Series. 6 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:21,560 Speaker 1: This is a huge honor and honestly it put a 7 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:24,400 Speaker 1: spring in my step as I walk alone each day 8 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:27,720 Speaker 1: down into my basement to record my conversations with my 9 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:32,240 Speaker 1: amazing guests. Podcasts can be a bit like the sound 10 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:35,280 Speaker 1: of a tree falling in a forest. You know, is 11 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,560 Speaker 1: anyone listening? Does it really exist? So here's the thing. 12 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:42,960 Speaker 1: This is the People's Voice Award, So you get to vote. 13 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:46,760 Speaker 1: It would mean so much if you'd go to vote 14 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:49,920 Speaker 1: dot Webby Awards dot com and cast your vote for 15 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:52,960 Speaker 1: Family Secrets. Thank you so much for hearing me out. 16 00:00:53,120 --> 00:01:01,440 Speaker 1: I love you guys. Now on with today's episode. I 17 00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:05,360 Speaker 1: had the America of my American father. He anointed our 18 00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:09,200 Speaker 1: lawn but Scott's turf builder. He bought us frozen cokes 19 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:12,600 Speaker 1: on the boardwalk at Rohoba Beach. He brought home a 20 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,080 Speaker 1: late model Ford Mustang, a stable name for our Ford 21 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:20,160 Speaker 1: fair Lane wagon. And lavished care on both. He flew 22 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,520 Speaker 1: the flag each Memorial Day in fourth of July, flaunting 23 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:27,360 Speaker 1: his citizenship so enthusiastically that I never believed he spoke 24 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:31,520 Speaker 1: with an accent, even as friends insisted he did. The 25 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:34,920 Speaker 1: fifties gave Nico the perfect background in which to recede, 26 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:38,440 Speaker 1: to take on the protective coloring of red, white and blue, 27 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,200 Speaker 1: to get on with the anesthetizing business of dissolving into 28 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:46,039 Speaker 1: the lonely crowd. By the mid sixties, he was raising 29 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:48,360 Speaker 1: three kids in a world with a Russian front had 30 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:52,600 Speaker 1: become a laugh line on Hogan's heroes. I watched my 31 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 1: father grow his shell hard and tuck his head in. 32 00:01:56,080 --> 00:02:01,040 Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's a word, but he turtled. That's 33 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:06,160 Speaker 1: Alexander Wolfe, longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, an author of 34 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: the memoir and papers. Alex's story, as is true of 35 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:15,160 Speaker 1: so many stories we tell on family secrets, begins many 36 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:19,320 Speaker 1: years before he's born. This is a multi generational journey 37 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:25,200 Speaker 1: of both privilege, survival, investigation and reckoning. What is our 38 00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:29,720 Speaker 1: legacy made of? How responsible are we for the lives 39 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:35,280 Speaker 1: lived by generations before us? Alex's story begins with his 40 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:39,960 Speaker 1: grandfather Kurt Wolf, one of the most esteemed literary figures 41 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:55,560 Speaker 1: of his time. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 42 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:58,480 Speaker 1: the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 43 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:08,720 Speaker 1: keep from others, and secrets we keep from ourselves. My 44 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 1: grandfather was born in seven and Bonn, the Rhineland. His 45 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:18,400 Speaker 1: father was a musician, taught at the university. They're taught music, 46 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:25,079 Speaker 1: choir master, composer, just completely assumed by music. And on 47 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:28,840 Speaker 1: his mother's side, my grandfather's mother's side, she was Jewish 48 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 1: and came from a long line of very prosperous Rhineland 49 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:35,960 Speaker 1: Jews were great collectors of books and art. So between 50 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,760 Speaker 1: the music and the art and the books, he was 51 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:44,840 Speaker 1: just steeped in this build on, this cultivating theself through culture. 52 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:48,920 Speaker 1: And it was no real surprise. I suppose that as 53 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:51,520 Speaker 1: soon as he had twenty three he was founding a 54 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:55,200 Speaker 1: publishing house. Um he'd begun collecting books as a teenager, 55 00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:01,160 Speaker 1: really valuable books and incunabula, really early valuable ones, and 56 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:03,160 Speaker 1: had an interest in literature too. He had gone off 57 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:05,800 Speaker 1: to to study. It seemed to have been the custom 58 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:09,640 Speaker 1: of the time to migrate from campus to campus around Germany. 59 00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:14,720 Speaker 1: He studied on four different campuses around the country stuttering literature. 60 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:18,160 Speaker 1: So books and literature were going to be his destiny. 61 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:21,880 Speaker 1: However it came to be. Now, my dad was born 62 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:25,960 Speaker 1: in nine after World War One, and it's difficult to 63 00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,080 Speaker 1: overstate how much Germany was convulsed by the war in 64 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:32,800 Speaker 1: the aftermath. So being born into ninety one not only 65 00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,920 Speaker 1: did it DestinE him to be part of that cohort 66 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:38,839 Speaker 1: of males who would be sent off to war Hitler's War, 67 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:41,920 Speaker 1: but it also meant that his childhood would be colored 68 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: by the Weimar hyper inflation. Now, he did have the 69 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:48,400 Speaker 1: good fortune of being born into a family that was 70 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,719 Speaker 1: very prosperous, not just because of his father, Court's wealth, 71 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:55,200 Speaker 1: family wealth, but also because Court had married an heiress 72 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:59,800 Speaker 1: named Elizabeth Mark, the Mark Pharmaceutical and chemical company known 73 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:05,280 Speaker 1: in States as More but originally from Germany. Alex's father, 74 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:08,760 Speaker 1: Nico is raised along with his sister Maria in Munich 75 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,360 Speaker 1: in a very comfortable life. They're taken care of by 76 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:15,320 Speaker 1: nanny's and really not a part of the life and 77 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:20,640 Speaker 1: social world of their parents. So fast forward light years 78 00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:23,920 Speaker 1: later too, when Alex and his siblings are growing up 79 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:28,479 Speaker 1: in nineteen fifties post war suburban America. The whole scene 80 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:32,479 Speaker 1: is very Ausi and Harriet hands on parenting. Dad has 81 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:36,479 Speaker 1: a corporate job, Mom stays home, and the past, the 82 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:41,839 Speaker 1: past is solidly where it belongs in the past. But 83 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,719 Speaker 1: here's the thing, a lot of history went down in 84 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:49,640 Speaker 1: those couple of decades before nineteen fifties America. For a 85 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:54,200 Speaker 1: German family with some Jewish roots, that history was fraught 86 00:05:54,560 --> 00:06:01,039 Speaker 1: and complicated and not so easily erased. Kurt was Jewish 87 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:04,359 Speaker 1: to the extent that the Nazis would have declared him Jewish, 88 00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: but he wasn't strictly speaking Jewish, in that his mom 89 00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:12,960 Speaker 1: and her parents had been baptized Christian and his father 90 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:17,279 Speaker 1: was Christian. Indeed, he was the choirmaster at a Luciman 91 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:21,839 Speaker 1: church and bond. So there was a great deal, particularly 92 00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:25,200 Speaker 1: among the upper classes, of this crawling to the cross, 93 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: as Heinrich Kina derisively put it, if you were that 94 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:32,240 Speaker 1: invested in German culture, and there was this roadblock to 95 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:36,719 Speaker 1: being a full participant in it, it was very tempting 96 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:41,719 Speaker 1: in nineteenth century Germany to abandon Judaism and fully embrace 97 00:06:42,480 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 1: Germany and Germanism and all these ways, and it was 98 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:51,640 Speaker 1: the same way that Felix Mendelssohn had abandoned Judaism. The Nazis, 99 00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:54,560 Speaker 1: of course regarded him as Jewish and always would, but 100 00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:57,400 Speaker 1: he not only became a Protestant, but he wrote the 101 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,839 Speaker 1: famous Reformation Symphony celebrating it. So it was very tricky 102 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:04,800 Speaker 1: that the cultural inheritance I'd say that my grandfather had 103 00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:09,680 Speaker 1: was very heavily inflected with Judaism. M His mother, I 104 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:11,520 Speaker 1: think had more than anything to do with his interest 105 00:07:11,560 --> 00:07:14,880 Speaker 1: in literature. His father was a musician, but because he 106 00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:18,240 Speaker 1: composed and he conducted and played, in his head was 107 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:22,960 Speaker 1: always somewhere else. But the inculcation of literature and stories 108 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,880 Speaker 1: and so forth came from my grandfather's mother, and of 109 00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:29,080 Speaker 1: course her being steeped in build on was the result 110 00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:32,920 Speaker 1: of these very prosperous Jewish ancestors of hers. I mean, 111 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,080 Speaker 1: one of the things that's so interesting to me, and 112 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:37,640 Speaker 1: I think that listeners will find really interesting, is this 113 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:43,520 Speaker 1: idea that there was this cultural choices and ultimately heritage 114 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:48,200 Speaker 1: that Nazis would not have looked at as oh, well, 115 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:51,280 Speaker 1: this is now someone who is Arian, who is one 116 00:07:51,320 --> 00:07:55,720 Speaker 1: of us, because they've been baptized, or because they've made 117 00:07:55,720 --> 00:08:00,280 Speaker 1: the choice to fully adopt our culture. Yeah, that to 118 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:05,360 Speaker 1: the Nazis judaism of the racial construct, and there's no 119 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:10,400 Speaker 1: way one can simply convert one's away out of being Jewish. 120 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:12,720 Speaker 1: And the Nuremberg Laws in the mid thirties when they 121 00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:16,960 Speaker 1: were enacted, were an attempt to somehow sort this out, 122 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:19,640 Speaker 1: and my father and his sister were very lucky to 123 00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:23,240 Speaker 1: fall on the more favorable side of that verdict. While 124 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,160 Speaker 1: not considered part of the German race and nation, were 125 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,640 Speaker 1: not targeted for elimination. By the time of the Nuremberg Laws, 126 00:08:30,040 --> 00:08:32,960 Speaker 1: my grandfather had already left Germany. He had had seen 127 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,719 Speaker 1: the Tea Leaves, had read them, and was on the 128 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 1: lamb in Italy and southern France with a German passport. 129 00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:42,200 Speaker 1: He was ultimately unable to renew, but then was quite 130 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:45,760 Speaker 1: happy to just abandon Germany. But in abandoning Germany, he's 131 00:08:45,760 --> 00:08:49,520 Speaker 1: abandoning his his children. It should be mentioned too that 132 00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:53,320 Speaker 1: by that point your grandfather was no longer married to 133 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:56,600 Speaker 1: your grandmother and was with another woman who he would 134 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:00,160 Speaker 1: later go on to Mary, who was also not Jewish. 135 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:05,960 Speaker 1: Is that correct? That's exactly what Yes, By nineteen thirty, 136 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:09,319 Speaker 1: Kurt and his soon to be new wife are essentially 137 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:13,080 Speaker 1: on the run, ending up in southern France, Italy and 138 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:17,880 Speaker 1: North Africa, while his children, Nico and Maria remain with 139 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:21,680 Speaker 1: their mother. Kurt had spent the nineteen twenties becoming a 140 00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:25,000 Speaker 1: well known literary figure in Europe as a publisher of 141 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:29,559 Speaker 1: Franz Kafka, Einrich Mahnn, brother of Thomas Mann, and Karl 142 00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:34,119 Speaker 1: Krauss of Viennese cultural critic. These were artists and thinkers 143 00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,880 Speaker 1: who were pushing the envelope. The new and exciting is 144 00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:41,560 Speaker 1: what animates Kurt, But by the early nineteen thirties, with 145 00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:44,880 Speaker 1: the advent of Hitler in Germany, the new and exciting, 146 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:48,880 Speaker 1: the pushing of the envelope and any whiff of Jewishness 147 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:55,160 Speaker 1: were all deeply dangerous. Kurt Wolf is restless, stymiede He 148 00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:58,560 Speaker 1: grows tired of life in exile and decides to attempt 149 00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:01,959 Speaker 1: a return to Berlin. He's been in this funk. He's 150 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:04,960 Speaker 1: desperate for something to engage him. He wants it to 151 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:07,640 Speaker 1: be in the cultural sphere, and he understands that there's 152 00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:10,960 Speaker 1: an opening in the Foreign ministry of some cultural attach 153 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:14,960 Speaker 1: shape position so he heads to Berlin in late nineteen 154 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,960 Speaker 1: hoping to interview for this job, and he checks in 155 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:24,160 Speaker 1: with friends and some writers and ultimately interviews for it. 156 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:27,040 Speaker 1: But then by January and February of ninety three, it's 157 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:29,840 Speaker 1: clear that Hitler is getting enough of a told that 158 00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:32,640 Speaker 1: there's no way he, with his record of having published 159 00:10:32,679 --> 00:10:36,520 Speaker 1: all these degenerate writers, um to say nothing of his 160 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:39,800 Speaker 1: being half Jewish, he would not be a candidate for 161 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,720 Speaker 1: this job. And it was literally within the forty eight 162 00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:45,640 Speaker 1: hours after the Reichstag burns that he and Helen Fleet 163 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:48,679 Speaker 1: they go first to London, where they get married, and 164 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,719 Speaker 1: then launched into this will be six or seven or 165 00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:54,640 Speaker 1: eight years of exile before they finally land in the US. 166 00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:00,640 Speaker 1: In your book, you have this really lovely meditation about 167 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,360 Speaker 1: I could sort of an inquiry really a question of 168 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:09,480 Speaker 1: what makes one know when it's time, you know, like 169 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:13,160 Speaker 1: when it's time to get out. In Holocaust literature in particular, 170 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,679 Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the people who just simply didn't believe 171 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,320 Speaker 1: that it could happen there, or it could happen to them, 172 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:23,319 Speaker 1: or that their privilege or their position would protect them. 173 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,400 Speaker 1: And it's just interesting that your grandfather who had, you know, 174 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:29,840 Speaker 1: so much privilege and protection in so many ways, read 175 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:32,319 Speaker 1: the tea leaves and got out, like really just in 176 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:36,960 Speaker 1: the nick of time. I believe it's very rare anybody 177 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:40,560 Speaker 1: who has read about or studied that period of the 178 00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:44,760 Speaker 1: thirties in Europe hasn't given some thought as to what 179 00:11:45,679 --> 00:11:47,680 Speaker 1: I would do if I were in those shoes and 180 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:51,360 Speaker 1: had to make that decision. And I think for people 181 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:55,920 Speaker 1: who are vulnerable under threat, but were of that upper 182 00:11:56,040 --> 00:12:01,760 Speaker 1: educated class who really loved and new the culture that 183 00:12:01,920 --> 00:12:05,160 Speaker 1: had been created in Germany, the German jew who adored 184 00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:10,360 Speaker 1: Good for instance, or Mendelssohn, and just could not conceive 185 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:14,640 Speaker 1: that the people who had created this that I love 186 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:19,920 Speaker 1: so much could then turn and embrace this barbarity. And 187 00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:23,960 Speaker 1: the quote from Bear told Break nails it so beautifully 188 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:27,400 Speaker 1: that the ability to figure out whether you have to 189 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:29,720 Speaker 1: get out now or you have another day or two 190 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:33,280 Speaker 1: requires that kind of imagination with which you could create 191 00:12:33,280 --> 00:12:37,199 Speaker 1: an immortal masterpiece. And I think that Breath quote nailed 192 00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:39,200 Speaker 1: it for me and got me thinking about this thing 193 00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:41,800 Speaker 1: that it, as you point out, is really a kind 194 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:45,360 Speaker 1: of universal sing wondering. We ask ourselves questions, you know, 195 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:48,040 Speaker 1: would what would I do if if I were forced 196 00:12:48,080 --> 00:12:50,760 Speaker 1: to defend my neighbor down the street. But also what 197 00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:53,480 Speaker 1: would I do to protect myself in my family if 198 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:57,839 Speaker 1: it meant forsaking this world that had found my place 199 00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:01,200 Speaker 1: in and contributed so much too. And I can hear that, 200 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:03,480 Speaker 1: particularly in my grandfather, who was so wedded to the 201 00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:07,920 Speaker 1: German language, and never, even as he published bestsellers in 202 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,880 Speaker 1: the English language, never mastered English. That must have been 203 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:15,280 Speaker 1: just a just a horrifying break to make. And he 204 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:23,000 Speaker 1: did it because he knew he had We'll be right back. 205 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:42,280 Speaker 1: Kurt and Helen do see the writing on the law, 206 00:13:42,679 --> 00:13:46,840 Speaker 1: and once again they flee Germany. Nico continues to see 207 00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:50,640 Speaker 1: his father for visits during school breaks, spending stretches of 208 00:13:50,679 --> 00:13:53,480 Speaker 1: time as a family, while Helen and Kurt are living 209 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:58,160 Speaker 1: a stable existence in southern France, so their separation is 210 00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:02,480 Speaker 1: more of a gliding path then a harsh break. When 211 00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:07,319 Speaker 1: finally his father and stepmother leave for New York, Nico 212 00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:12,160 Speaker 1: is still in boarding school his final year. Where it 213 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:18,000 Speaker 1: really gets harsh is indeed forty the war begins. Nico 214 00:14:18,520 --> 00:14:21,880 Speaker 1: is finishing up his final year in boarding school after 215 00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:26,040 Speaker 1: the invasion of Poland and it's in nineteen forty that 216 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:29,840 Speaker 1: he's inducted. In ninety is the year that Curt and 217 00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:33,960 Speaker 1: Helen or are leaving Paris and heading for what's become 218 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:38,160 Speaker 1: Vichy Fraus, And it's in forty one that they actually 219 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,400 Speaker 1: make their way via Lisbon to New York, which, as 220 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:43,960 Speaker 1: it happens, is precisely when my dad is inducted and 221 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: conscripted into the Luftwaffe and as part of the invasion 222 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:54,680 Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. Could you define the word mich Ling. Yeah, 223 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: Mischling is a Nazi word for someone who has descended 224 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:04,120 Speaker 1: from Jewish descent. It's always so tricky, and I tried 225 00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:07,160 Speaker 1: to distance myself from words like this by using quotation 226 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:10,680 Speaker 1: marks religiously around them whenever they appear in the text. 227 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,160 Speaker 1: But it's basically, if you're a first degree Mischling in 228 00:15:13,280 --> 00:15:16,760 Speaker 1: Nazi terms, you would be what we might call half Jewish, 229 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:20,120 Speaker 1: that is, having one Jewish parent. And if you're a 230 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:22,960 Speaker 1: second degree Mischling, you would be like my father as 231 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:26,240 Speaker 1: opposed to my grandfather, which is to say, one of 232 00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:30,000 Speaker 1: your four grandparents is considered by the Normberg laws to 233 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,680 Speaker 1: be Jewish. The irony here, of course, is is that 234 00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:38,000 Speaker 1: rabbinical law also considers people are descended of Jews to 235 00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:40,000 Speaker 1: be Jewish and that there's no converting out of it 236 00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:43,160 Speaker 1: in the same way that the Nazis felt that way. 237 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:46,800 Speaker 1: But be that as it may, that that was the nomenclature, 238 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,280 Speaker 1: the terminology, and my dad, as a second degree Michelin, 239 00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,200 Speaker 1: was eligible to serve in the armed forces of the 240 00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:57,560 Speaker 1: Third Reich. There were about a hundred and fifty thousand 241 00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:02,160 Speaker 1: of these Jewish soldiers and who served in one capacity 242 00:16:02,280 --> 00:16:06,160 Speaker 1: or another, and they were under threat. They were constantly 243 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:09,520 Speaker 1: changing definitions of who would be eliminated, who would be 244 00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:13,960 Speaker 1: discriminated against. And there are academic studies that predicted, had 245 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:17,920 Speaker 1: Hitler won the war, that even these partly Jewish Germans 246 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:20,520 Speaker 1: who served in the enforces of the Reich would have 247 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:27,600 Speaker 1: been targeted for elimination afterwards. Imagine being part Jewish in 248 00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:32,400 Speaker 1: a world dominated by Nazi ideology, a second degree quote 249 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:38,200 Speaker 1: unquote mischling and serving the Third Reich. What parts of 250 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:41,000 Speaker 1: yourself would you have to bury to put on hold 251 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:46,480 Speaker 1: to decimate during the war. Just after he graduates high school, 252 00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:51,520 Speaker 1: Niko is drafted into the Luftwaffe. He participates in the 253 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:56,240 Speaker 1: invasion of the Soviet Union, driving a jeep with target 254 00:16:56,280 --> 00:17:00,880 Speaker 1: maps and reconnaissance photos for a fighter's squadron. For a 255 00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:04,119 Speaker 1: while he holds up in the Ukraine, but then it 256 00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:07,639 Speaker 1: begins again and he's sent into active duty, and in 257 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:12,199 Speaker 1: n he's assigned to anti aircraft battery in the Battle 258 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:16,639 Speaker 1: of the Bulge. The following year, he's taken prisoner by 259 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:20,560 Speaker 1: American forces and sent to a US POW camp in France. 260 00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:24,560 Speaker 1: When it's all over, he returns to his mother's home, 261 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:29,160 Speaker 1: so estranged from himself that he doesn't simply walk in, 262 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:34,320 Speaker 1: he rings the doorbell. This is the history he brings 263 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:37,520 Speaker 1: with him to America when Kurt is finally able to 264 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:41,520 Speaker 1: send for him, And this is the history he carries 265 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:47,080 Speaker 1: as he starts his family and embarks on the American dream. 266 00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:50,080 Speaker 1: What did you know growing up in Princeton, New Jersey 267 00:17:50,119 --> 00:17:54,679 Speaker 1: of your father's history. I knew as a boy that 268 00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:57,560 Speaker 1: my father had fought in World War Two, just as 269 00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:00,240 Speaker 1: so many fathers of so many of my playing eight 270 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:03,080 Speaker 1: friends had fought in World War Two. And I knew 271 00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:05,479 Speaker 1: all along that he had been on the other side, 272 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:07,760 Speaker 1: and very quickly knew that he had been on the 273 00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:12,199 Speaker 1: wrong side. And he never trimmed or concealed that in 274 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:16,000 Speaker 1: any way from me. If you were a boy of nine, 275 00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:19,439 Speaker 1: ten eleven years old growing up in central New Jersey 276 00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:22,679 Speaker 1: in the late sixties, you would play army sometimes, and 277 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:27,159 Speaker 1: I would sometimes play army on the wrong side I was. 278 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:30,240 Speaker 1: I was acutely aware of it. The moral implications of 279 00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:33,439 Speaker 1: all that would be a long time in setting in 280 00:18:33,800 --> 00:18:36,400 Speaker 1: with any kind of nuance. But no, I didn't know that. 281 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:38,919 Speaker 1: But I also knew that my mother had planted a 282 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,760 Speaker 1: victory garden growing up in Connecticut. And I knew too 283 00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:48,000 Speaker 1: that my grandfather had been essentially chased over to the US. 284 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:50,640 Speaker 1: So there was this vague sense that there had been 285 00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:55,200 Speaker 1: these two very divergent paths. But for some reason, when 286 00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:58,359 Speaker 1: I considered my father and grandfather, I never entertained the 287 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:02,000 Speaker 1: idea that my grandfather had in any way abandoned my father. 288 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: And then when I happened upon particularly my aunt Maria's 289 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:09,360 Speaker 1: letters and just some of the resentments that she nurtured 290 00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:11,600 Speaker 1: for the rest of her life, I get a sense 291 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:13,879 Speaker 1: that it was real, that that sense of abandonment was 292 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:16,840 Speaker 1: very real for her. I think in my dad's case 293 00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:19,600 Speaker 1: there was so much redumption there was such a sense 294 00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:21,960 Speaker 1: of a fresh start that he was able to embrace 295 00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:25,760 Speaker 1: by emigrating. And when he emigrated, and it was just 296 00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:31,360 Speaker 1: as the fifties, We're gonna launch that generation of Americans 297 00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:35,000 Speaker 1: and immigrants on this this great path of success, and 298 00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:39,480 Speaker 1: that allowed him to put everything behind, so he wasn't 299 00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:45,040 Speaker 1: rehearsing these resentments. For me, Maria and Nico had very 300 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:49,600 Speaker 1: different paths. Many siblings do, but there is diverge in 301 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,920 Speaker 1: stark ways, perhaps the starkest of which is that Maria 302 00:19:54,000 --> 00:20:00,760 Speaker 1: remains in Germany whereas Nico emigrates to the States. That's 303 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:05,879 Speaker 1: so interesting, the way that two people, you know, two siblings, 304 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:10,040 Speaker 1: coming from the same parents and the same environment, you know, 305 00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:15,159 Speaker 1: the same childhood, can end up with such different narratives 306 00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:17,760 Speaker 1: for different reasons. It's always the case with siblings. It's 307 00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:21,000 Speaker 1: as if they have had different parents in some way. 308 00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:23,760 Speaker 1: But there's a moment where you write, I never felt 309 00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:27,520 Speaker 1: like a child raised post traumatically, and that struck me 310 00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:32,679 Speaker 1: so hard, because there's so much trauma in both your 311 00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:37,280 Speaker 1: grandfather's story and your father's story. It seems something of 312 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:43,960 Speaker 1: a triumph to not have had that trauma extend to you. 313 00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:46,880 Speaker 1: But it was the turn of phrase, you know, raised 314 00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:51,399 Speaker 1: post traumatically, which to me really means that your father 315 00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:55,560 Speaker 1: and your mother didn't raise you with that being a specter, 316 00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: and that you know, it's funny because I mean, this 317 00:20:58,119 --> 00:21:00,239 Speaker 1: is this is a podcast called Family Secrets, but this 318 00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:03,840 Speaker 1: is actually a case where it makes me wonder if 319 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,560 Speaker 1: Nico had kept that a secret, if he had been 320 00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:11,320 Speaker 1: deeply ashamed of his service, and that shame had caused 321 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,439 Speaker 1: him to tuck it away, you know, to put it 322 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:18,920 Speaker 1: somewhere where his children wouldn't know about it, that then 323 00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:21,400 Speaker 1: you would have been raised post traumatically. If that makes 324 00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:24,879 Speaker 1: any sense. It makes all sorts of sense. And one 325 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,600 Speaker 1: of the things that I came to realize in a 326 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,280 Speaker 1: very profound way was the more I thought about it 327 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:34,439 Speaker 1: and rooted around my dad's letters, is that he was 328 00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:36,399 Speaker 1: so forward looking, and I think to a fault in 329 00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:40,199 Speaker 1: some ways, but being forward looking meant that, Okay, what 330 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,639 Speaker 1: can I do now as I go forth with my 331 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:47,159 Speaker 1: life to a tone in some ways for this chapter, 332 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,480 Speaker 1: which for for no fault of my own, I was 333 00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,120 Speaker 1: caught up in, and I I'm struck a new at 334 00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:55,520 Speaker 1: how much he was devoted to the cause of peace, 335 00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,639 Speaker 1: between the Soviet Union in the US during a time 336 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:00,879 Speaker 1: when that wasn't to be take and for granted. And 337 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,119 Speaker 1: he was obsessively interested in in the Russian people. He 338 00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:09,040 Speaker 1: loved reading a Bukov, He participated in exchange programs with 339 00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:12,840 Speaker 1: Soviet citizens. Um, it was almost as if he needed 340 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:14,680 Speaker 1: to get on the ground, you know. Here he had 341 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,320 Speaker 1: been supplying maps and photographs for Aloft Boffe Squadron during 342 00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:21,639 Speaker 1: the invasion of the Soviet Union. And as he hit 343 00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:24,960 Speaker 1: his late middle age, he was engaging himself with the 344 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,840 Speaker 1: descendants of these very people. And that's a way of 345 00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:31,400 Speaker 1: spinning it forward, really, I think, um, rather than wallowing 346 00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,080 Speaker 1: or being shackled by the past. Now, I think part 347 00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:36,879 Speaker 1: of it was he was dropped into a United States 348 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:40,280 Speaker 1: was putting the war behind it. I mean, the economy 349 00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 1: and everybody's orientation was entirely spun forward. And here he's 350 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:49,800 Speaker 1: living in suburbia and he has an American wife and 351 00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:53,720 Speaker 1: three kids, and me being the eldest and the only male. 352 00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:57,120 Speaker 1: I mean, it was based forward, boy, and embrace this 353 00:22:57,320 --> 00:22:59,879 Speaker 1: country and all these opportunities they are here as he 354 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:02,200 Speaker 1: was doing, you know, that's what he modeled for me. 355 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:05,679 Speaker 1: And then there's the imposition of our next door neighbor 356 00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:07,840 Speaker 1: who works for the Boy Scouts of America and is 357 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:11,800 Speaker 1: slipping me copies of Boys Life, and all I want 358 00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:14,480 Speaker 1: to do is become a member of the Boy Scouts. 359 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:16,840 Speaker 1: And my dad has to explain to me that he's 360 00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:18,639 Speaker 1: not a big fan of the idea of me becoming 361 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:21,040 Speaker 1: a member of the Boy Scouts wearing a uniform and 362 00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:25,000 Speaker 1: pledging some oath and insignia and secret handshakes or whatever 363 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,320 Speaker 1: it might be. And he did. I do remember this, 364 00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,800 Speaker 1: him explaining that I was Sinn Hitler and there's a 365 00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 1: downside to this, And there was a real sense of Oh, 366 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:36,840 Speaker 1: I have a second I've been given the grace of 367 00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:38,800 Speaker 1: a second chance, and I'm going to try to get 368 00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,520 Speaker 1: it right, not just for myself, but for my kids too. 369 00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:47,160 Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 370 00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,399 Speaker 1: Niko is able, for the most part, to put his 371 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,960 Speaker 1: experience is in the war behind him, in part because 372 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,359 Speaker 1: of the time and place of postwar America and in 373 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:10,800 Speaker 1: part because of his own temperament. I think many of 374 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,600 Speaker 1: us have a natural set point as either forward looking 375 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:20,440 Speaker 1: or backward looking. Nico is definitely forward looking. He isn't 376 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,480 Speaker 1: forgetting or sloughing off the past as much as he 377 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:27,280 Speaker 1: is learning and moving forward from it. In a beautiful 378 00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,879 Speaker 1: passage in Alex's book, he writes, we are raised to 379 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,359 Speaker 1: regard shame as something to avoid or bury, not to 380 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:39,440 Speaker 1: speak about. But shame can be a great animating, activating 381 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,840 Speaker 1: force if we let it. All of this is encapsulated 382 00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,040 Speaker 1: in a German word I wouldn't dare try to pronounce 383 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,160 Speaker 1: because it's about nine thousand syllables long, but I'll ask 384 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:55,120 Speaker 1: Alex to share it with us. The word is for gundenheights, 385 00:24:55,200 --> 00:25:00,439 Speaker 1: also our bit believe I've had a chance to to 386 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,560 Speaker 1: pronounce it with a little bit of grace. Fraganenheit is 387 00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:08,160 Speaker 1: the past, and alfy tongue is literally working something off, 388 00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,479 Speaker 1: so working off the past. And I have to credit 389 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,959 Speaker 1: Susan Neeman and her remarkable book Learning from the Germans 390 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: for introducing me to a lot of these concepts. There's 391 00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,080 Speaker 1: somebody that Susan's worked closely with them, a German named 392 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:26,919 Speaker 1: Joan Choi Minzma, who really came up with this idea 393 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,320 Speaker 1: that we can take shame and kind of mold it 394 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,080 Speaker 1: and repurpose it. And I think This is where I 395 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:36,560 Speaker 1: tipped my hat to the Germans into modern Germany, because 396 00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,320 Speaker 1: when you look at the ways and the public sphere 397 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:44,840 Speaker 1: that the Nazi catastrophe has been repurposed so it can 398 00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:48,239 Speaker 1: be a lesson of never forget and never again. There 399 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,720 Speaker 1: are these memorials of these get denshtet, which are the 400 00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,159 Speaker 1: German word for a place of reflection, the ways that 401 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:58,679 Speaker 1: the German people engage with their past on the daily basis, 402 00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:02,680 Speaker 1: and perhaps nothing more found in these stumbling stones, the 403 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,879 Speaker 1: Schlodpersteiner that are embedded in the sidewalks of Berlin and 404 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:10,600 Speaker 1: many other German cities to memorialize individuals who were targeted 405 00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,320 Speaker 1: by the Nazis and eliminated by the Naxis. And I 406 00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:17,040 Speaker 1: think what shame does. And I watched the Germans over 407 00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,120 Speaker 1: this year spend in Berlin do this is it? Um? Okay, 408 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,680 Speaker 1: this is the past that's been handed down to me. 409 00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,800 Speaker 1: These are things that I'm willing to accept and embrace 410 00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,480 Speaker 1: and and improve upon. We're big on that in the States, 411 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:34,200 Speaker 1: certainly taking our past and trying to perfect the American story. 412 00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,280 Speaker 1: You know, then that arc toward justice. But then there's 413 00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,479 Speaker 1: things that that I'm going to reject and and Susan 414 00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,760 Speaker 1: Eman in her book makes such a great case of 415 00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,360 Speaker 1: that part of growing up is taking those things from 416 00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,800 Speaker 1: your parents and sifting through them and then deciding what 417 00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:51,800 Speaker 1: you're going to accept and what you're going to reject. 418 00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,760 Speaker 1: And the Germans have done this, I think, in a 419 00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:01,680 Speaker 1: civic way on a large scale, in this extremely admirable fashion. 420 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,080 Speaker 1: And I think and Brian Stevenson has done such good 421 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:09,120 Speaker 1: work with this down in Alabama, with this project on lynching, 422 00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,639 Speaker 1: and um, we really if there were a way that 423 00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,840 Speaker 1: we could build a civic culture in the US that 424 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,119 Speaker 1: allows us to grapple with slavery and Jim Crow in 425 00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:23,199 Speaker 1: that scene wait where there's no debate over whether this 426 00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:27,399 Speaker 1: is shameful. We accept that. And unfortunately where we are 427 00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,080 Speaker 1: in the States right now is there seems to be 428 00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:34,040 Speaker 1: some lingering debate over what's shameful. And that's a great lesson, 429 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,840 Speaker 1: I think. In Susan's book, Learning from the Germans, she's 430 00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,600 Speaker 1: braided these two national shames and tried to instruct Americans 431 00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,560 Speaker 1: about it. And the proof of how successful she is, 432 00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,399 Speaker 1: I think, and how successful the Germans are is it 433 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,119 Speaker 1: the German people are appalled when they learned the title 434 00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,320 Speaker 1: of this book that Susan has chosen. But there's something 435 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:56,240 Speaker 1: that we Germans have can teach others that's outrageous. You know, 436 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,960 Speaker 1: we're still humbling ourselves from the way we betrayed humanity 437 00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,120 Speaker 1: during the middle of the twenty century. Yeah, it strikes 438 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,720 Speaker 1: me almost as our shame is actually the thing that 439 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:10,679 Speaker 1: makes us debate whether there is any reason to be ashamed. Yeah, yeah, no, 440 00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,240 Speaker 1: we're because we're not accustomed to a basing ourselves before 441 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,160 Speaker 1: anybody as a nation. We're not we're not into that. 442 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,520 Speaker 1: We ride high and tride a stride the rest of 443 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,640 Speaker 1: the world. And one of the things I took away 444 00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,080 Speaker 1: from your in Germany and talking to Germans, including my 445 00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,199 Speaker 1: my relatives, was that there's great grace and power and 446 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,520 Speaker 1: to be embraced in the humility of acknowledging that you 447 00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:39,880 Speaker 1: have something to be ashamed about. You picked up, you know, 448 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,440 Speaker 1: with your family, and you moved to Germany for a 449 00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,040 Speaker 1: year to do the research into your father's past. Was 450 00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,480 Speaker 1: there a moment that you knew this was something that 451 00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,640 Speaker 1: you needed to do and or a series of moments, 452 00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:54,840 Speaker 1: or was it something that you knew for a long 453 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,520 Speaker 1: time that you would eventually want to really excavate. It 454 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,120 Speaker 1: was probably a confluence three things. Um I watched the 455 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,800 Speaker 1: magazine i'd worked for for thirty six years of Bleeds 456 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:12,080 Speaker 1: staff and became part of that exodus, which was Inhich. 457 00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,480 Speaker 1: Of course, is the same year that Donald Trump was elected, 458 00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:18,719 Speaker 1: which I think brought into very sharp focus for me 459 00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,000 Speaker 1: that maybe America isn't so exceptional, that maybe there are 460 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:27,440 Speaker 1: these parallels to what happened in Germany. But then also, 461 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:30,120 Speaker 1: you know, to be perfectly honest, that the fact that 462 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,760 Speaker 1: these ancestors of mine were dead I think liberated me 463 00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,640 Speaker 1: in a way. And I still had a cousin and 464 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,360 Speaker 1: an uncle who are still very invested in that generation, 465 00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,880 Speaker 1: and I knew if I could get them on board 466 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,280 Speaker 1: to share archival stuff that they controlled, that I could 467 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,720 Speaker 1: really do some important work. And they both have been 468 00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,840 Speaker 1: so supportive and incredibly grateful to them both. The cousin 469 00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,560 Speaker 1: isn't in Munich and the uncle is over a mountain 470 00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,640 Speaker 1: rage here in Vermont. And there's a real simple truth 471 00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,440 Speaker 1: in in archives. I have dealt with archives a great 472 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,240 Speaker 1: deal in my journalistic career and get more and more 473 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:08,920 Speaker 1: comfortable and burying myself in them. But I knew that 474 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:10,520 Speaker 1: this had to do more than that, that I had 475 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,520 Speaker 1: to find living, breathing people too, and I was so 476 00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:19,040 Speaker 1: grateful to find them in my cousin John and another cousin, Nico, 477 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,280 Speaker 1: who was exactly my agent. Has wrestled with some of 478 00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:24,680 Speaker 1: these things. You know, he's had enormous privilege as a 479 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,040 Speaker 1: as a mark in Germany, but he's also has a 480 00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,880 Speaker 1: real conscience and has tried to change the world in 481 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,840 Speaker 1: his own way. And long conversations with him in Berlin. 482 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,800 Speaker 1: Berlin is a great town for for law conversations, and 483 00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,960 Speaker 1: it all came together. And I also knew that I 484 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,360 Speaker 1: had been kind of running from stuff for thirty six 485 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,560 Speaker 1: years that being a staff writer for Sports Illustrated during 486 00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,680 Speaker 1: that period I worked there was it was really a 487 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,200 Speaker 1: joy ride. I mean, there were so many exciting things, 488 00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,680 Speaker 1: and I knew that there was something in the past 489 00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,440 Speaker 1: to turn back to and take the measure of. And 490 00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,040 Speaker 1: I've got to say there was one thing, and I 491 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,000 Speaker 1: heard it in Arian Annoyment's episode with you two. There 492 00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,440 Speaker 1: was this this moment where she felt she had been 493 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,200 Speaker 1: given permission by father to go back and tell his 494 00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:15,440 Speaker 1: family story. And when my father and I took this 495 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,320 Speaker 1: Danube River cruise, which was really the most we dug 496 00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,000 Speaker 1: into his past, and I asked him the toughest questions. 497 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,160 Speaker 1: At one point, in a lull on our conversations, he said, 498 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,520 Speaker 1: maybe he'll write about this. This is a huge, this 499 00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,880 Speaker 1: idea of permission, not just for writers, but for all 500 00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:40,160 Speaker 1: of us, we the survivors, the ancestors, the ones left 501 00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,160 Speaker 1: to tell the story. We long for that elusive permission, 502 00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,760 Speaker 1: that sense that it's really okay, and it's so rare 503 00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:53,080 Speaker 1: for that permission to literally be granted. This was also 504 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,040 Speaker 1: true with my guests in season three of this podcast, 505 00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,840 Speaker 1: Arianna Noyman, whose father left her a box after his 506 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:05,680 Speaker 1: f an actual box filled with his story, essentially bequeathing 507 00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,160 Speaker 1: it to her. If you haven't listened to Ariana's episode, 508 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:15,040 Speaker 1: I hope you'll go back and find it later. Mm hmm. Permission. 509 00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,000 Speaker 1: I took it as that. I took it as permission. 510 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:22,120 Speaker 1: And of course the fact that all these letters and 511 00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:27,600 Speaker 1: my father's denocification questionnaire and is certificate of Varian ancestry, 512 00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,320 Speaker 1: all this stuff is still sitting around. What is a 513 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:37,280 Speaker 1: denazification questionnaire? So in the immediate post war um, every 514 00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,120 Speaker 1: German citizen above a certain age was asked to fill 515 00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:45,040 Speaker 1: out of a questionnaire was undred and thirty plus questions 516 00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,120 Speaker 1: on it about you were past and political and otherwise, 517 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,040 Speaker 1: as my dad called it. And the important thing was 518 00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:54,239 Speaker 1: to determine who had actually been a Nazi. And they 519 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,280 Speaker 1: had five different classifications of how implicated you were, and 520 00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,280 Speaker 1: simply by dat of having been in the armed services. 521 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:04,440 Speaker 1: My dad had to fill out the questionnaire and he 522 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:06,320 Speaker 1: had been in the Hitler Youth because everyone at his 523 00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:08,400 Speaker 1: boarding school had been in the Hitler Youth. And when 524 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,680 Speaker 1: he studied at the university, there was a German students 525 00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,640 Speaker 1: union that was a Nazi Party organization. He had to 526 00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,640 Speaker 1: be a part of two in order to study, but 527 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,560 Speaker 1: he had never been a member of the party, and 528 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,400 Speaker 1: this allowed him to apply for a student visa, and 529 00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,200 Speaker 1: the intercession of my grandfather, who by then was an 530 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,520 Speaker 1: American citizen in allowed him to come over to the 531 00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,080 Speaker 1: States to do graduate work in chemistry. But yeah, all 532 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:37,360 Speaker 1: these documents were still they're moldering away, and they called 533 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,000 Speaker 1: to me the photographs. My dad was, you know, he 534 00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,440 Speaker 1: loved technology, is like it was his favorite little gadget, 535 00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,200 Speaker 1: and his mom would send him film. When he was 536 00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:50,080 Speaker 1: deployed around Europe. We take pictures and send them back 537 00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,400 Speaker 1: and she saved every letter, every photo, and my dad 538 00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,560 Speaker 1: this is further permission. My dad translated all his letters 539 00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:58,920 Speaker 1: for my sisters in me before he died, and I 540 00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,760 Speaker 1: think he wanted us to know. One of the most 541 00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,920 Speaker 1: difficult things for Alex to process had to do with 542 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:10,080 Speaker 1: Niko's letters home, describing in detail how well he was 543 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:14,560 Speaker 1: eating during his early days in Hitler's army when the 544 00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:18,680 Speaker 1: Nazis were in power. The idea was to eat everything 545 00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,839 Speaker 1: in sight. When the Nazis were riding high and they 546 00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,440 Speaker 1: were taking everything they could out of the Ukraine, He 547 00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,800 Speaker 1: and his fellow soldiers not to say that also civilians 548 00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:32,880 Speaker 1: back in Germany were eating just scandalously well. And it 549 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,520 Speaker 1: was only after I got to Berlin and started to 550 00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,080 Speaker 1: read that I realized that this was all part of 551 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:44,080 Speaker 1: a genocidal plant to starve the native population. It wasn't 552 00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,400 Speaker 1: just to feed German soldiers, it was also to eliminate 553 00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:52,040 Speaker 1: Slavs who were subhuman, and Jews who were subhuman, and 554 00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,080 Speaker 1: and just decolonized basically the swath of eastern Europe which 555 00:34:56,080 --> 00:35:00,719 Speaker 1: would become eventually resettled by German farmers and annex to 556 00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,400 Speaker 1: the right, and to read the history alongside my dad's 557 00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,920 Speaker 1: letters is to just, you know, just to start to cry. 558 00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,400 Speaker 1: Then later food became scarce, particularly during Niko's time in 559 00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:19,440 Speaker 1: the American pow Camp. I think the enduring part of 560 00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,400 Speaker 1: my dad's wartime experience that we would see was around 561 00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,560 Speaker 1: the dinner table, when his appetite would be on display. 562 00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,719 Speaker 1: So when I say I was raised post traumatically, I 563 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,560 Speaker 1: suppose that might have been the one exception, because he 564 00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,000 Speaker 1: did have a relationship with food that made it clear 565 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:35,800 Speaker 1: to anyone who really thought about it that there was 566 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:37,440 Speaker 1: a time in his life that he didn't have enough. 567 00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,880 Speaker 1: Do you feel that you got to know your father 568 00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,640 Speaker 1: better through the reading of I mean, you know, sort 569 00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:48,720 Speaker 1: of this extraordinary body of personal writing that he left behind. 570 00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,080 Speaker 1: Did you feel like you were adding another layer to 571 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,040 Speaker 1: your understanding of him? Yeah. I think his letters home 572 00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:57,640 Speaker 1: they're very practical. I recognize his personality and every single 573 00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,319 Speaker 1: one of them. So I didn't really learn anything new 574 00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:05,000 Speaker 1: about who he was, but I was able to see, Okay, 575 00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,480 Speaker 1: he went through all this, and he kept my sisters 576 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,040 Speaker 1: in me protected from it throughout his life as a 577 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,160 Speaker 1: father and a husband. And I think that was the 578 00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,120 Speaker 1: revelation to me, was just the length that he went 579 00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:23,480 Speaker 1: to to make sure that we wouldn't be troubled by 580 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,719 Speaker 1: his own trauma. And he knew how lucky he was 581 00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:29,360 Speaker 1: to have landed in the US that a father he 582 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,799 Speaker 1: may have resented for having abandoned him then worked really 583 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,440 Speaker 1: hard to bring him over and help set him up, 584 00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,600 Speaker 1: which I think squared accounts between him and his father 585 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,280 Speaker 1: in a way that my aunt Maria never entirely squared 586 00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,160 Speaker 1: accounts with her father. So yes, I did gain a 587 00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,359 Speaker 1: real appreciation for his the way he ran interference for us, 588 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,520 Speaker 1: and he was really scrupulous about sharing with us. I 589 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:53,680 Speaker 1: say this in the book, sharing with us really only 590 00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,560 Speaker 1: the beauty and now, whether it was books or art 591 00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,680 Speaker 1: or music. And I I do caricature him a little 592 00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,280 Speaker 1: bit as a as a child and an adolescent, as 593 00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:04,760 Speaker 1: this techie who didn't really care the way his sister 594 00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,080 Speaker 1: did or his father certainly about art and find things. 595 00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:12,200 Speaker 1: But he came around to all that and love music 596 00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:16,160 Speaker 1: and loved art and loved the well written novel. So 597 00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:18,680 Speaker 1: he had plenty to live for an embrace and know 598 00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,319 Speaker 1: that even as he was in these horrific places that 599 00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:25,200 Speaker 1: there was something back in Munich that was it was 600 00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,960 Speaker 1: being kind of preserved behind the walls of the house 601 00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,879 Speaker 1: where he had had grown up in. And I think 602 00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:35,960 Speaker 1: that's the next point between my dad's experience and the 603 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,600 Speaker 1: experienced of so many German Jews for me, because they 604 00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,880 Speaker 1: were every bit as invested in this German culture and 605 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,160 Speaker 1: helped create it. And this was this was the world 606 00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,520 Speaker 1: that my dad had grown up been first destroyed by 607 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:49,960 Speaker 1: the Nazis on a cultural level, and then was destroyed 608 00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:52,799 Speaker 1: from the air by the Allies because there really didn't 609 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:54,520 Speaker 1: seem to be any other way to bring the Third 610 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,960 Speaker 1: Rch to heal than to just destroy Germany full stop. 611 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:05,040 Speaker 1: In Alex's treasure trove of letters, there is one Nico 612 00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:08,880 Speaker 1: wrote to Kurt after visiting Darmstadt, a town where his 613 00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,000 Speaker 1: mother had grown up, shortly after the war had ended. 614 00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:19,160 Speaker 1: Nico uses a resting language to describe Darmstadt oozing rubble 615 00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:26,840 Speaker 1: like thick porridge ruinous. In the summer, Nico takes Alex's 616 00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,239 Speaker 1: youngest sister on a cruise through the Mediterranean, where they 617 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:35,240 Speaker 1: stop at the scattered ruins of Ephesus. Nico separates himself 618 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,280 Speaker 1: from the group, takes a seat along this ancient plaza, 619 00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:44,120 Speaker 1: and begins to weep. It seems that the markers of 620 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:49,760 Speaker 1: a civilization laid bare, that rubble undoes a seam inside 621 00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:55,239 Speaker 1: of him and opens up his own history. I don't 622 00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:59,480 Speaker 1: think there's any question that my father's reaction at Ephesus 623 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,399 Speaker 1: was a flashback. You know, the trip was a kind 624 00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,560 Speaker 1: of taking stock of aledictory tour with daughter, and you know, 625 00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,760 Speaker 1: his mortality very much on his mind, and and Cathy 626 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,560 Speaker 1: didn't discuss explicitly the reason for his breakdown and him 627 00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,879 Speaker 1: revealing all that emotion. But I don't think there's any 628 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,280 Speaker 1: question that it was tying into the Darmstadt. And indeed, 629 00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,400 Speaker 1: the omen which his mother had grown up was was 630 00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,440 Speaker 1: a ruin, and he describes it in this letter to 631 00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:31,360 Speaker 1: his father in great detail, and the pipes clanking on 632 00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:35,440 Speaker 1: the outside, and a bathtub just exposed to the world, 633 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,120 Speaker 1: and his great uncle stooped and ruined and living in 634 00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,960 Speaker 1: a garden shed, and these things just don't leave you. 635 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,600 Speaker 1: And he had concealed them all so so well. And 636 00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,760 Speaker 1: the last thing I ever said to him before he died, 637 00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,239 Speaker 1: where I knew that he was conscious and processing. It 638 00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,040 Speaker 1: was I just told him that your life has been 639 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:58,279 Speaker 1: a miracle, and it was yes. He talked about how 640 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,640 Speaker 1: he had escaped death in number of times, and it 641 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,960 Speaker 1: was that, of course, But really, I think the miracle 642 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,000 Speaker 1: that I was referring to. He nodded his assent. I 643 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,640 Speaker 1: think he understood was the way he had re constituted 644 00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:25,600 Speaker 1: a life for himself as an immigrant. Family Secrets is 645 00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,240 Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Media. Dylan Fagin and Bethan 646 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,800 Speaker 1: Macaluso are the executive producers. Andrew Howard is our audio editor. 647 00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,160 Speaker 1: If you have a secret you'd like to share, leave 648 00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,319 Speaker 1: us a voicemail and your story could appear on an 649 00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:47,600 Speaker 1: upcoming bonus episode. Our number is one secret zero. That's 650 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,520 Speaker 1: secret and then the number zero. You can also find 651 00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:56,680 Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Danny Writer, Facebook at facebook dot 652 00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,960 Speaker 1: com slash Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter at fami Secret Spot. 653 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,720 Speaker 1: And if you want to know about my family secret 654 00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,560 Speaker 1: that inspired this podcast, check out my New York Times 655 00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:22,480 Speaker 1: bestselling memoir Inheritance. Yeah. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, 656 00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,480 Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever 657 00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,080 Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.