WEBVTT - Facing Forward 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.000 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio high 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.600 Family Secrets Listeners. It's Danny here to share a bit 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.640 of exciting news with you before today's episode. We just 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.520 found out that our podcast is a nominee for the 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.280 Webby People's Voice Award in the category of Best Series. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.560 This is a huge honor and honestly it put a 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.400 spring in my step as I walk alone each day 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.720 down into my basement to record my conversations with my 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.240 amazing guests. Podcasts can be a bit like the sound 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.280 of a tree falling in a forest. You know, is 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.560 anyone listening? Does it really exist? So here's the thing. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.960 This is the People's Voice Award, So you get to vote. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.760 It would mean so much if you'd go to vote 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.920 dot Webby Awards dot com and cast your vote for 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.960 Family Secrets. Thank you so much for hearing me out. 0:00:53.120 --> 0:01:01.440 I love you guys. Now on with today's episode. I 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.360 had the America of my American father. He anointed our 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.200 lawn but Scott's turf builder. He bought us frozen cokes 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.600 on the boardwalk at Rohoba Beach. He brought home a 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:16.080 late model Ford Mustang, a stable name for our Ford 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.160 fair Lane wagon. And lavished care on both. He flew 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.520 the flag each Memorial Day in fourth of July, flaunting 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.360 his citizenship so enthusiastically that I never believed he spoke 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.520 with an accent, even as friends insisted he did. The 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.920 fifties gave Nico the perfect background in which to recede, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.440 to take on the protective coloring of red, white and blue, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.200 to get on with the anesthetizing business of dissolving into 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.039 the lonely crowd. By the mid sixties, he was raising 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.360 three kids in a world with a Russian front had 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.600 become a laugh line on Hogan's heroes. I watched my 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.120 father grow his shell hard and tuck his head in. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.040 I'm not sure it's a word, but he turtled. That's 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:06.160 Alexander Wolfe, longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, an author of 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:11.280 the memoir and papers. Alex's story, as is true of 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:15.160 so many stories we tell on family secrets, begins many 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.320 years before he's born. This is a multi generational journey 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:25.200 of both privilege, survival, investigation and reckoning. What is our 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.720 legacy made of? How responsible are we for the lives 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:35.280 lived by generations before us? Alex's story begins with his 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.960 grandfather Kurt Wolf, one of the most esteemed literary figures 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:55.560 of his time. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.480 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:08.720 keep from others, and secrets we keep from ourselves. My 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:14.400 grandfather was born in seven and Bonn, the Rhineland. His 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.400 father was a musician, taught at the university. They're taught music, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:25.079 choir master, composer, just completely assumed by music. And on 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.840 his mother's side, my grandfather's mother's side, she was Jewish 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.760 and came from a long line of very prosperous Rhineland 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.960 Jews were great collectors of books and art. So between 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.760 the music and the art and the books, he was 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:44.840 just steeped in this build on, this cultivating theself through culture. 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.920 And it was no real surprise. I suppose that as 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.520 soon as he had twenty three he was founding a 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.200 publishing house. Um he'd begun collecting books as a teenager, 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:01.160 really valuable books and incunabula, really early valuable ones, and 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.160 had an interest in literature too. He had gone off 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.800 to to study. It seemed to have been the custom 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.640 of the time to migrate from campus to campus around Germany. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.720 He studied on four different campuses around the country stuttering literature. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.160 So books and literature were going to be his destiny. 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.880 However it came to be. Now, my dad was born 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.960 in nine after World War One, and it's difficult to 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.080 overstate how much Germany was convulsed by the war in 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.800 the aftermath. So being born into ninety one not only 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.920 did it DestinE him to be part of that cohort 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.839 of males who would be sent off to war Hitler's War, 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.920 but it also meant that his childhood would be colored 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.880 by the Weimar hyper inflation. Now, he did have the 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.400 good fortune of being born into a family that was 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.719 very prosperous, not just because of his father, Court's wealth, 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.200 family wealth, but also because Court had married an heiress 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.800 named Elizabeth Mark, the Mark Pharmaceutical and chemical company known 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:05.280 in States as More but originally from Germany. Alex's father, 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.760 Nico is raised along with his sister Maria in Munich 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.360 in a very comfortable life. They're taken care of by 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.320 nanny's and really not a part of the life and 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:20.640 social world of their parents. So fast forward light years 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.920 later too, when Alex and his siblings are growing up 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:28.479 in nineteen fifties post war suburban America. The whole scene 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.479 is very Ausi and Harriet hands on parenting. Dad has 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.479 a corporate job, Mom stays home, and the past, the 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:41.839 past is solidly where it belongs in the past. But 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.719 here's the thing, a lot of history went down in 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.640 those couple of decades before nineteen fifties America. For a 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:54.200 German family with some Jewish roots, that history was fraught 0:05:54.560 --> 0:06:01.039 and complicated and not so easily erased. Kurt was Jewish 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.359 to the extent that the Nazis would have declared him Jewish, 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.279 but he wasn't strictly speaking Jewish, in that his mom 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.960 and her parents had been baptized Christian and his father 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.279 was Christian. Indeed, he was the choirmaster at a Luciman 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.839 church and bond. So there was a great deal, particularly 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.200 among the upper classes, of this crawling to the cross, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.880 as Heinrich Kina derisively put it, if you were that 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.240 invested in German culture, and there was this roadblock to 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.719 being a full participant in it, it was very tempting 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.719 in nineteenth century Germany to abandon Judaism and fully embrace 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.960 Germany and Germanism and all these ways, and it was 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.640 the same way that Felix Mendelssohn had abandoned Judaism. The Nazis, 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.560 of course regarded him as Jewish and always would, but 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.400 he not only became a Protestant, but he wrote the 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.839 famous Reformation Symphony celebrating it. So it was very tricky 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.800 that the cultural inheritance I'd say that my grandfather had 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.680 was very heavily inflected with Judaism. M His mother, I 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.520 think had more than anything to do with his interest 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.880 in literature. His father was a musician, but because he 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.240 composed and he conducted and played, in his head was 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:22.960 always somewhere else. But the inculcation of literature and stories 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.880 and so forth came from my grandfather's mother, and of 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.080 course her being steeped in build on was the result 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.920 of these very prosperous Jewish ancestors of hers. I mean, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.080 one of the things that's so interesting to me, and 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.640 I think that listeners will find really interesting, is this 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:43.520 idea that there was this cultural choices and ultimately heritage 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:48.200 that Nazis would not have looked at as oh, well, 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.280 this is now someone who is Arian, who is one 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.720 of us, because they've been baptized, or because they've made 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.280 the choice to fully adopt our culture. Yeah, that to 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.360 the Nazis judaism of the racial construct, and there's no 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.400 way one can simply convert one's away out of being Jewish. 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:12.720 And the Nuremberg Laws in the mid thirties when they 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.960 were enacted, were an attempt to somehow sort this out, 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.640 and my father and his sister were very lucky to 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.240 fall on the more favorable side of that verdict. While 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.160 not considered part of the German race and nation, were 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.640 not targeted for elimination. By the time of the Nuremberg Laws, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.960 my grandfather had already left Germany. He had had seen 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.719 the Tea Leaves, had read them, and was on the 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.360 lamb in Italy and southern France with a German passport. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.200 He was ultimately unable to renew, but then was quite 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.760 happy to just abandon Germany. But in abandoning Germany, he's 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.520 abandoning his his children. It should be mentioned too that 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.320 by that point your grandfather was no longer married to 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.600 your grandmother and was with another woman who he would 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.160 later go on to Mary, who was also not Jewish. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:05.960 Is that correct? That's exactly what Yes, By nineteen thirty, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.319 Kurt and his soon to be new wife are essentially 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.080 on the run, ending up in southern France, Italy and 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.880 North Africa, while his children, Nico and Maria remain with 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.680 their mother. Kurt had spent the nineteen twenties becoming a 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.000 well known literary figure in Europe as a publisher of 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.559 Franz Kafka, Einrich Mahnn, brother of Thomas Mann, and Karl 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:34.119 Krauss of Viennese cultural critic. These were artists and thinkers 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.880 who were pushing the envelope. The new and exciting is 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:41.560 what animates Kurt, But by the early nineteen thirties, with 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.880 the advent of Hitler in Germany, the new and exciting, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.880 the pushing of the envelope and any whiff of Jewishness 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:55.160 were all deeply dangerous. Kurt Wolf is restless, stymiede He 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.560 grows tired of life in exile and decides to attempt 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.959 a return to Berlin. He's been in this funk. He's 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.960 desperate for something to engage him. He wants it to 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.640 be in the cultural sphere, and he understands that there's 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.960 an opening in the Foreign ministry of some cultural attach 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.960 shape position so he heads to Berlin in late nineteen 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.960 hoping to interview for this job, and he checks in 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.160 with friends and some writers and ultimately interviews for it. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.040 But then by January and February of ninety three, it's 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.840 clear that Hitler is getting enough of a told that 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.640 there's no way he, with his record of having published 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.520 all these degenerate writers, um to say nothing of his 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.800 being half Jewish, he would not be a candidate for 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.720 this job. And it was literally within the forty eight 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.640 hours after the Reichstag burns that he and Helen Fleet 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.679 they go first to London, where they get married, and 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.719 then launched into this will be six or seven or 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.640 eight years of exile before they finally land in the US. 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.640 In your book, you have this really lovely meditation about 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.360 I could sort of an inquiry really a question of 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.480 what makes one know when it's time, you know, like 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.160 when it's time to get out. In Holocaust literature in particular, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.679 I'm thinking about the people who just simply didn't believe 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.320 that it could happen there, or it could happen to them, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.319 or that their privilege or their position would protect them. 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.400 And it's just interesting that your grandfather who had, you know, 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.840 so much privilege and protection in so many ways, read 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.319 the tea leaves and got out, like really just in 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.960 the nick of time. I believe it's very rare anybody 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.560 who has read about or studied that period of the 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.760 thirties in Europe hasn't given some thought as to what 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.680 I would do if I were in those shoes and 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.360 had to make that decision. And I think for people 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.920 who are vulnerable under threat, but were of that upper 0:11:56.040 --> 0:12:01.760 educated class who really loved and new the culture that 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.160 had been created in Germany, the German jew who adored 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:10.360 Good for instance, or Mendelssohn, and just could not conceive 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.640 that the people who had created this that I love 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.920 so much could then turn and embrace this barbarity. And 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.960 the quote from Bear told Break nails it so beautifully 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.400 that the ability to figure out whether you have to 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:29.720 get out now or you have another day or two 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.280 requires that kind of imagination with which you could create 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.199 an immortal masterpiece. And I think that Breath quote nailed 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.200 it for me and got me thinking about this thing 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.800 that it, as you point out, is really a kind 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.360 of universal sing wondering. We ask ourselves questions, you know, 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.040 would what would I do if if I were forced 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.760 to defend my neighbor down the street. But also what 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.480 would I do to protect myself in my family if 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.839 it meant forsaking this world that had found my place 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.200 in and contributed so much too. And I can hear that, 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.480 particularly in my grandfather, who was so wedded to the 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.920 German language, and never, even as he published bestsellers in 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.880 the English language, never mastered English. That must have been 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.280 just a just a horrifying break to make. And he 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:23.000 did it because he knew he had We'll be right back. 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.280 Kurt and Helen do see the writing on the law, 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.840 and once again they flee Germany. Nico continues to see 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.640 his father for visits during school breaks, spending stretches of 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.480 time as a family, while Helen and Kurt are living 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:58.160 a stable existence in southern France, so their separation is 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.480 more of a gliding path then a harsh break. When 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:07.319 finally his father and stepmother leave for New York, Nico 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:12.160 is still in boarding school his final year. Where it 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:18.000 really gets harsh is indeed forty the war begins. Nico 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.880 is finishing up his final year in boarding school after 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:26.040 the invasion of Poland and it's in nineteen forty that 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.840 he's inducted. In ninety is the year that Curt and 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.960 Helen or are leaving Paris and heading for what's become 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.160 Vichy Fraus, And it's in forty one that they actually 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.400 make their way via Lisbon to New York, which, as 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.960 it happens, is precisely when my dad is inducted and 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.960 conscripted into the Luftwaffe and as part of the invasion 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:54.680 of the Soviet Union. Could you define the word mich Ling. Yeah, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:59.520 Mischling is a Nazi word for someone who has descended 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:04.120 from Jewish descent. It's always so tricky, and I tried 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.160 to distance myself from words like this by using quotation 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.680 marks religiously around them whenever they appear in the text. 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.160 But it's basically, if you're a first degree Mischling in 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.760 Nazi terms, you would be what we might call half Jewish, 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.120 that is, having one Jewish parent. And if you're a 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.960 second degree Mischling, you would be like my father as 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.240 opposed to my grandfather, which is to say, one of 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.000 your four grandparents is considered by the Normberg laws to 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.680 be Jewish. The irony here, of course, is is that 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.000 rabbinical law also considers people are descended of Jews to 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.000 be Jewish and that there's no converting out of it 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.160 in the same way that the Nazis felt that way. 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.800 But be that as it may, that that was the nomenclature, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.280 the terminology, and my dad, as a second degree Michelin, 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.200 was eligible to serve in the armed forces of the 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.560 Third Reich. There were about a hundred and fifty thousand 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:02.160 of these Jewish soldiers and who served in one capacity 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:06.160 or another, and they were under threat. They were constantly 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.520 changing definitions of who would be eliminated, who would be 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.960 discriminated against. And there are academic studies that predicted, had 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.920 Hitler won the war, that even these partly Jewish Germans 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.520 who served in the enforces of the Reich would have 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:27.600 been targeted for elimination afterwards. Imagine being part Jewish in 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.400 a world dominated by Nazi ideology, a second degree quote 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:38.200 unquote mischling and serving the Third Reich. What parts of 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.000 yourself would you have to bury to put on hold 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.480 to decimate during the war. Just after he graduates high school, 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.520 Niko is drafted into the Luftwaffe. He participates in the 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:56.240 invasion of the Soviet Union, driving a jeep with target 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.880 maps and reconnaissance photos for a fighter's squadron. For a 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.119 while he holds up in the Ukraine, but then it 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.639 begins again and he's sent into active duty, and in 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:12.199 n he's assigned to anti aircraft battery in the Battle 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.639 of the Bulge. The following year, he's taken prisoner by 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.560 American forces and sent to a US POW camp in France. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.560 When it's all over, he returns to his mother's home, 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.160 so estranged from himself that he doesn't simply walk in, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.320 he rings the doorbell. This is the history he brings 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.520 with him to America when Kurt is finally able to 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.520 send for him, And this is the history he carries 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:47.080 as he starts his family and embarks on the American dream. 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.080 What did you know growing up in Princeton, New Jersey 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.679 of your father's history. I knew as a boy that 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.560 my father had fought in World War Two, just as 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.240 so many fathers of so many of my playing eight 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.080 friends had fought in World War Two. And I knew 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.479 all along that he had been on the other side, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:07.760 and very quickly knew that he had been on the 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.199 wrong side. And he never trimmed or concealed that in 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.000 any way from me. If you were a boy of nine, 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.439 ten eleven years old growing up in central New Jersey 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.679 in the late sixties, you would play army sometimes, and 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.159 I would sometimes play army on the wrong side I was. 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.240 I was acutely aware of it. The moral implications of 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.439 all that would be a long time in setting in 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.400 with any kind of nuance. But no, I didn't know that. 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:38.919 But I also knew that my mother had planted a 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.760 victory garden growing up in Connecticut. And I knew too 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:48.000 that my grandfather had been essentially chased over to the US. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.640 So there was this vague sense that there had been 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:55.200 these two very divergent paths. But for some reason, when 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.359 I considered my father and grandfather, I never entertained the 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:02.000 idea that my grandfather had in any way abandoned my father. 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.600 And then when I happened upon particularly my aunt Maria's 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.360 letters and just some of the resentments that she nurtured 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.600 for the rest of her life, I get a sense 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:13.879 that it was real, that that sense of abandonment was 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.840 very real for her. I think in my dad's case 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.600 there was so much redumption there was such a sense 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:21.960 of a fresh start that he was able to embrace 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.760 by emigrating. And when he emigrated, and it was just 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:31.360 as the fifties, We're gonna launch that generation of Americans 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.000 and immigrants on this this great path of success, and 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.480 that allowed him to put everything behind, so he wasn't 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:45.040 rehearsing these resentments. For me, Maria and Nico had very 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:49.600 different paths. Many siblings do, but there is diverge in 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.920 stark ways, perhaps the starkest of which is that Maria 0:19:54.000 --> 0:20:00.760 remains in Germany whereas Nico emigrates to the States. That's 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:05.879 so interesting, the way that two people, you know, two siblings, 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.040 coming from the same parents and the same environment, you know, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:15.159 the same childhood, can end up with such different narratives 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.760 for different reasons. It's always the case with siblings. It's 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.000 as if they have had different parents in some way. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.760 But there's a moment where you write, I never felt 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.520 like a child raised post traumatically, and that struck me 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:32.679 so hard, because there's so much trauma in both your 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:37.280 grandfather's story and your father's story. It seems something of 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:43.960 a triumph to not have had that trauma extend to you. 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.880 But it was the turn of phrase, you know, raised 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.399 post traumatically, which to me really means that your father 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.560 and your mother didn't raise you with that being a specter, 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.080 and that you know, it's funny because I mean, this 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.239 is this is a podcast called Family Secrets, but this 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.840 is actually a case where it makes me wonder if 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.560 Nico had kept that a secret, if he had been 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.320 deeply ashamed of his service, and that shame had caused 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.439 him to tuck it away, you know, to put it 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.920 somewhere where his children wouldn't know about it, that then 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.400 you would have been raised post traumatically. If that makes 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.879 any sense. It makes all sorts of sense. And one 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.600 of the things that I came to realize in a 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.280 very profound way was the more I thought about it 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.439 and rooted around my dad's letters, is that he was 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:36.399 so forward looking, and I think to a fault in 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.199 some ways, but being forward looking meant that, Okay, what 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.639 can I do now as I go forth with my 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:47.159 life to a tone in some ways for this chapter, 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:49.480 which for for no fault of my own, I was 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:53.120 caught up in, and I I'm struck a new at 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.520 how much he was devoted to the cause of peace, 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.639 between the Soviet Union in the US during a time 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:00.879 when that wasn't to be take and for granted. And 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.119 he was obsessively interested in in the Russian people. He 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:09.040 loved reading a Bukov, He participated in exchange programs with 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.840 Soviet citizens. Um, it was almost as if he needed 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:14.680 to get on the ground, you know. Here he had 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:19.320 been supplying maps and photographs for Aloft Boffe Squadron during 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.639 the invasion of the Soviet Union. And as he hit 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.960 his late middle age, he was engaging himself with the 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.840 descendants of these very people. And that's a way of 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.400 spinning it forward, really, I think, um, rather than wallowing 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.080 or being shackled by the past. Now, I think part 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.879 of it was he was dropped into a United States 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.280 was putting the war behind it. I mean, the economy 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:46.760 and everybody's orientation was entirely spun forward. And here he's 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:49.800 living in suburbia and he has an American wife and 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.720 three kids, and me being the eldest and the only male. 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.120 I mean, it was based forward, boy, and embrace this 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:59.879 country and all these opportunities they are here as he 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:02.200 was doing, you know, that's what he modeled for me. 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:05.679 And then there's the imposition of our next door neighbor 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.840 who works for the Boy Scouts of America and is 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.800 slipping me copies of Boys Life, and all I want 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:14.480 to do is become a member of the Boy Scouts. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:16.840 And my dad has to explain to me that he's 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:18.639 not a big fan of the idea of me becoming 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:21.040 a member of the Boy Scouts wearing a uniform and 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:25.000 pledging some oath and insignia and secret handshakes or whatever 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:27.320 it might be. And he did. I do remember this, 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:31.800 him explaining that I was Sinn Hitler and there's a 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.040 downside to this, And there was a real sense of Oh, 0:23:35.040 --> 0:23:36.840 I have a second I've been given the grace of 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:38.800 a second chance, and I'm going to try to get 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:41.520 it right, not just for myself, but for my kids too. 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.160 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:59.399 Niko is able, for the most part, to put his 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.960 experience is in the war behind him, in part because 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.359 of the time and place of postwar America and in 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.800 part because of his own temperament. I think many of 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:14.600 us have a natural set point as either forward looking 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:20.440 or backward looking. Nico is definitely forward looking. He isn't 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.480 forgetting or sloughing off the past as much as he 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:27.280 is learning and moving forward from it. In a beautiful 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:30.879 passage in Alex's book, he writes, we are raised to 0:24:30.920 --> 0:24:34.359 regard shame as something to avoid or bury, not to 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:39.440 speak about. But shame can be a great animating, activating 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:43.840 force if we let it. All of this is encapsulated 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:47.040 in a German word I wouldn't dare try to pronounce 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.160 because it's about nine thousand syllables long, but I'll ask 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:55.120 Alex to share it with us. The word is for gundenheights, 0:24:55.200 --> 0:25:00.439 also our bit believe I've had a chance to to 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:03.560 pronounce it with a little bit of grace. Fraganenheit is 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:08.160 the past, and alfy tongue is literally working something off, 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:13.479 so working off the past. And I have to credit 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:16.959 Susan Neeman and her remarkable book Learning from the Germans 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:19.760 for introducing me to a lot of these concepts. There's 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:23.080 somebody that Susan's worked closely with them, a German named 0:25:23.160 --> 0:25:26.919 Joan Choi Minzma, who really came up with this idea 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:29.320 that we can take shame and kind of mold it 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.080 and repurpose it. And I think This is where I 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:36.560 tipped my hat to the Germans into modern Germany, because 0:25:36.960 --> 0:25:39.320 when you look at the ways and the public sphere 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:44.840 that the Nazi catastrophe has been repurposed so it can 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.239 be a lesson of never forget and never again. There 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:51.720 are these memorials of these get denshtet, which are the 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:55.159 German word for a place of reflection, the ways that 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:58.679