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The Pendulum: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Forbidden Nazi Past
Called "poetic and heartfelt" and "powerful" by a Publisher’s Weekly starred review, read about Julie Lindahl's journey to uncover the truth about her grandfather’s history as a member of Hitler's SS elite. This gripping memoir traces Brazilian-born American Julie Lindahl’s journey to uncover her grandparents’ roles in the Third Reich as she is driven to understand how and why they became members of Hitler’s elite, the SS. Out of the unbearable heart of the story—the unclaimed guilt that devours a family through the generations—emerges an unflinching will to learn the truth. In a remarkable six-year journey through Germany, Poland, Paraguay, and Brazil, Julie uncovers, among many other discoveries, that her grandfather had been a fanatic member of the SS since 1934. During World War II, he was responsible for enslavement and torture and was complicit in the murder of the local population on the large estates he oversaw in occupied Poland. He eventually fled to South America to evade a new wave of war-crimes trials. The pendulum used by Julie’s grandmother to divine good from bad and true from false becomes a symbol for the elusiveness of truth and morality, but also for the false securities we cling to when we become unmoored. As Julie delves deeper into the abyss of her family’s secret, discovering history anew, one precarious step at a time, the compassion of strangers is a growing force that transforms her world and the way that she sees her family—and herself.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published October 15, 2018
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775 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
January 14, 2019
This is a fascinating story about a historian’s search for the truth about her family history. I highly recommend this book. If you have ever done any genealogy research on your family, you will be enthralled with this book. Lindahl was born in Brazil where her grandparents had emigrated after World War II. She discovered her grandfather was not only a Nazi but SS. This book will make you stop and think about the rise of fascism and what is happening today in the world. Can history repeat itself?
The book is well written and researched. She tells of her grandparents’ lives but also about her own emotions about her discoveries. Lindahl uses her skills as an academic to research and report on this difficult subject. I found her search techniques to be interesting. Lindahl earned her B.S. from Wellesley and was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany majoring in the German language. She earned a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University. She was a Steven Traveling Fellow 2015-16 at Wellesley College and University College of London. She lives in Sweden.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is nine hours. Gabra Zackman does a great job narrating the book. Zackman is an actress and audiobook narrator.
The book is well written and researched. She tells of her grandparents’ lives but also about her own emotions about her discoveries. Lindahl uses her skills as an academic to research and report on this difficult subject. I found her search techniques to be interesting. Lindahl earned her B.S. from Wellesley and was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany majoring in the German language. She earned a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University. She was a Steven Traveling Fellow 2015-16 at Wellesley College and University College of London. She lives in Sweden.
I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is nine hours. Gabra Zackman does a great job narrating the book. Zackman is an actress and audiobook narrator.
February 20, 2019
Page 72 (my book) Januszewski - an eyewitness in Poland
“He wants to tell you the real truth. It is not your fault. You have done nothing.”
This is an intense account of a woman who is consumed with trying to get her family to acknowledge their Nazi-SS past.
Her grandfather was an SS member. He joined very willingly in the early 1930’s. During the war he served in Poland and lived in large estates where the owners had been evicted and likely killed. His family, the authors’ mother, aunts, and uncles were raised in their early years on these estates. They had Polish servants.
The grandfather was a brute of a man. The author discovered written testimony of beatings he inflicted on several Polish people, his slave labourers. There is also the probability that he participated in atrocities, of which there were plenty in Poland, but there are no records of this.
The grand-father, with his family, fled to South America (Brazil and Paraguay) in the early 1960’s. The author was born in Brazil, but only lived there for a few years. Her grandmother left her husband (the grandfather to the author) and returned to West Germany, bringing her young daughters and grand-children, including the author, with her.
The grandmother lived to over one hundred years old – and was very lucid – and opinionated. She, in many ways, is the center of this story. Several conversations between her and her grand-daughter are re-counted. The grand-daughter probes to find out more about the Nazi past. She does achieve some revelations but at the cost of a partial estrangement from her grandmother. They love each other through their family ties – they each cherished one another. The grandmother was caring to her grandchildren. But the subjects of the SS, Nazi’s, the brutal occupation of Poland, the Holocaust…all are avoided. There is a wall of denial of what her husband did. The grandmother is unable to remove herself from the Nazi indoctrination of superiority and Lebensraum. She saw Poles as being dependent on German “aid”, much like a colonial power. The entire family, except for the author, has built layers of obfuscation around the grandfather’s role in the SS.
The author is severely tormented by the constant refusals of her grandmother and her aunts to approach this topic of guilt and what her grandfather did. She goes to archives in Germany – and then visits Poland. She is given testimony from Poles about beatings inflicted on them by her grandfather. In fact, Poland wanted to extradite him for a trial in the 1950’s, but Germany refused.
In her investigations the author meets archivists and librarians who assist her enormously in Germany, Poland and then Brazil. They help her to unravel the truth about her grandfather. She travelled to Poland to visit various estates that her grandfather lorded over and gets eyewitness details. His role during the war is still not clear – but after the war he surrounded himself by SS comrades and lived in some seclusion in West Germany.
The family left Germany in the early 1960’s for South America. Part of the reason is that West Germany – and Israel (with the extradition of Eichmann in 1960 from Argentina) – were starting to pursue more aggressively Nazi war criminals. I suspect another reason was more personal. Her grandfather had viciously beaten some Polish people. When he fled to Germany at war’s end, he made sure he lived in isolated hamlets surrounded by many of his fellow cronies. This helped to protect him from those seeking revenge. Going off to South America was more insurance from retribution. And in South America there was also a network of his comrades, fascist governments more sympathetic to ex-Nazis, and plenty of Lebensraum.
At this stage of her investigations the author discovered that she still had an uncle (son of her grandfather) alive and living as a prosperous farmer in Paraguay. So, she goes to both Paraguay – and then Brazil where her grandfather settled and subsequently died. Sadly, the uncle is unable to explore the Nazi past of his father – even though he was in Poland when he was a young. The eyewitnesses in Poland recalled this son of their tormentor.
The author is locked in a perpetual effort to get her family members to express some form of guilt of the crimes of Nazi Germany. This, for me, makes it a story of great moral interest – and very personal. This memoir is a searing testimony to face the truth.
Similar books and documentaries have been made. My Father's Keeper: Children of Nazi Leaders-An Intimate History of Damage and Denialis on the sons and daughters of prominent Nazis and how they have adjusted or have not adjusted. Two films are “Hitler’s Children” and “My Nazi Legacy”. Of peripheral interest on perpetrators and forgiveness is The Railway Man.
It would appear that there are a range of people – those able, like the author, to honestly see the evil of the past. And those who impose psychological avoidance obstacles, or who even feel that this Nazi past was justified in some form or other. Her grandmother was definitely in the latter category.
This memoir provides us with considerable insight on seeking truth. The writing is engaging, emotional, and very thoughtful. The writer is a moral and understanding human being. One wishes her peace in her life and the adjustments she has had to make for the evil inflicted by her grandfather – and the refusal of her family to come to terms with it.
“He wants to tell you the real truth. It is not your fault. You have done nothing.”
This is an intense account of a woman who is consumed with trying to get her family to acknowledge their Nazi-SS past.
Her grandfather was an SS member. He joined very willingly in the early 1930’s. During the war he served in Poland and lived in large estates where the owners had been evicted and likely killed. His family, the authors’ mother, aunts, and uncles were raised in their early years on these estates. They had Polish servants.
The grandfather was a brute of a man. The author discovered written testimony of beatings he inflicted on several Polish people, his slave labourers. There is also the probability that he participated in atrocities, of which there were plenty in Poland, but there are no records of this.
The grand-father, with his family, fled to South America (Brazil and Paraguay) in the early 1960’s. The author was born in Brazil, but only lived there for a few years. Her grandmother left her husband (the grandfather to the author) and returned to West Germany, bringing her young daughters and grand-children, including the author, with her.
The grandmother lived to over one hundred years old – and was very lucid – and opinionated. She, in many ways, is the center of this story. Several conversations between her and her grand-daughter are re-counted. The grand-daughter probes to find out more about the Nazi past. She does achieve some revelations but at the cost of a partial estrangement from her grandmother. They love each other through their family ties – they each cherished one another. The grandmother was caring to her grandchildren. But the subjects of the SS, Nazi’s, the brutal occupation of Poland, the Holocaust…all are avoided. There is a wall of denial of what her husband did. The grandmother is unable to remove herself from the Nazi indoctrination of superiority and Lebensraum. She saw Poles as being dependent on German “aid”, much like a colonial power. The entire family, except for the author, has built layers of obfuscation around the grandfather’s role in the SS.
The author is severely tormented by the constant refusals of her grandmother and her aunts to approach this topic of guilt and what her grandfather did. She goes to archives in Germany – and then visits Poland. She is given testimony from Poles about beatings inflicted on them by her grandfather. In fact, Poland wanted to extradite him for a trial in the 1950’s, but Germany refused.
In her investigations the author meets archivists and librarians who assist her enormously in Germany, Poland and then Brazil. They help her to unravel the truth about her grandfather. She travelled to Poland to visit various estates that her grandfather lorded over and gets eyewitness details. His role during the war is still not clear – but after the war he surrounded himself by SS comrades and lived in some seclusion in West Germany.
The family left Germany in the early 1960’s for South America. Part of the reason is that West Germany – and Israel (with the extradition of Eichmann in 1960 from Argentina) – were starting to pursue more aggressively Nazi war criminals. I suspect another reason was more personal. Her grandfather had viciously beaten some Polish people. When he fled to Germany at war’s end, he made sure he lived in isolated hamlets surrounded by many of his fellow cronies. This helped to protect him from those seeking revenge. Going off to South America was more insurance from retribution. And in South America there was also a network of his comrades, fascist governments more sympathetic to ex-Nazis, and plenty of Lebensraum.
At this stage of her investigations the author discovered that she still had an uncle (son of her grandfather) alive and living as a prosperous farmer in Paraguay. So, she goes to both Paraguay – and then Brazil where her grandfather settled and subsequently died. Sadly, the uncle is unable to explore the Nazi past of his father – even though he was in Poland when he was a young. The eyewitnesses in Poland recalled this son of their tormentor.
The author is locked in a perpetual effort to get her family members to express some form of guilt of the crimes of Nazi Germany. This, for me, makes it a story of great moral interest – and very personal. This memoir is a searing testimony to face the truth.
Similar books and documentaries have been made. My Father's Keeper: Children of Nazi Leaders-An Intimate History of Damage and Denialis on the sons and daughters of prominent Nazis and how they have adjusted or have not adjusted. Two films are “Hitler’s Children” and “My Nazi Legacy”. Of peripheral interest on perpetrators and forgiveness is The Railway Man.
It would appear that there are a range of people – those able, like the author, to honestly see the evil of the past. And those who impose psychological avoidance obstacles, or who even feel that this Nazi past was justified in some form or other. Her grandmother was definitely in the latter category.
This memoir provides us with considerable insight on seeking truth. The writing is engaging, emotional, and very thoughtful. The writer is a moral and understanding human being. One wishes her peace in her life and the adjustments she has had to make for the evil inflicted by her grandfather – and the refusal of her family to come to terms with it.
June 11, 2019
Julie Lindahl shows how she slowly became aware of her grandparents Nazi background. She discusses the family dynamic of silence and how she set about tracing what her grandfather did.
Now living in Sweden, Lindahl was born in Brazil of a German family that emigrated in 1960. She had a close relationship with her grandmother who had returned to Germany upon the death of her husband.
Just prior to her grandmother’s death (at age 103), Lindahl began her genealogical research, visiting libraries and the sites where her grandfather was stationed. She learned of his racism, temper and violence. It was hard to break the family norms, but she did. She told her dying grandmother some of what she has learned. Her grandmother’s response is one of the most telling episodes in the book.
Following her research in Poland and Germany, she went to South America. She describes the land, some history and the warm reception she received from her uncle who had left the family. In this part she misses many opportunities to engage with locals. From her uncle she hears only that in losing the war, a lot was lost for the family and that the persecution of the Jews was a bad part of the war. She does not press him for more.
There is a lot missing here. While Lindahl sees the shame of the family being related to the Holocaust, their words seem to say they are ashamed of losing the war. Also, this family has not only the war to reconcile, but also domestic abuse. There is plenty of literature on how abused children cling to their parents and find excuses for their behavior. The family is clearly suffering from cognitive dissonance. They believe they are good people and they did the right thing. They have rejected Catholicism - since it will give them no "confirmation" and continue to emotionally justify their actions ("things were better then", "we could rich today") and minimize (or distance themselves from) anything contrary - they speak of Nazi brutality as though they were not part of it.
Another crucial link is unexplored – that of her parents. Her father seems to be a benign figure who somehow wound up in this Nazi family. Her mother, identified as M. is not mentioned in any memorable way.
Lindahl may be too close to the material. While what is here is thought provoking and she has unearthed information that otherwise would be lost, more distance would have made for a better product.
For those interested in this topic I highly recommend the film “Hitler’s Children” which has interviews of some descendants of Hitler’s top officials.
Now living in Sweden, Lindahl was born in Brazil of a German family that emigrated in 1960. She had a close relationship with her grandmother who had returned to Germany upon the death of her husband.
Just prior to her grandmother’s death (at age 103), Lindahl began her genealogical research, visiting libraries and the sites where her grandfather was stationed. She learned of his racism, temper and violence. It was hard to break the family norms, but she did. She told her dying grandmother some of what she has learned. Her grandmother’s response is one of the most telling episodes in the book.
Following her research in Poland and Germany, she went to South America. She describes the land, some history and the warm reception she received from her uncle who had left the family. In this part she misses many opportunities to engage with locals. From her uncle she hears only that in losing the war, a lot was lost for the family and that the persecution of the Jews was a bad part of the war. She does not press him for more.
There is a lot missing here. While Lindahl sees the shame of the family being related to the Holocaust, their words seem to say they are ashamed of losing the war. Also, this family has not only the war to reconcile, but also domestic abuse. There is plenty of literature on how abused children cling to their parents and find excuses for their behavior. The family is clearly suffering from cognitive dissonance. They believe they are good people and they did the right thing. They have rejected Catholicism - since it will give them no "confirmation" and continue to emotionally justify their actions ("things were better then", "we could rich today") and minimize (or distance themselves from) anything contrary - they speak of Nazi brutality as though they were not part of it.
Another crucial link is unexplored – that of her parents. Her father seems to be a benign figure who somehow wound up in this Nazi family. Her mother, identified as M. is not mentioned in any memorable way.
Lindahl may be too close to the material. While what is here is thought provoking and she has unearthed information that otherwise would be lost, more distance would have made for a better product.
For those interested in this topic I highly recommend the film “Hitler’s Children” which has interviews of some descendants of Hitler’s top officials.
October 17, 2018
“It is where we do not seek truth that ungoverned guilt does its unholy mischief.”
As a child, I met my grandmother quite infrequently. The yearly visit at Christmas, birthdays, the occasional Easter. It never occurred to me at a young age why despite her relative proximity to us, we rarely visited. As I got older, my sisters and I began to think about this. Was there something in her past that we were unaware of? Asking our mother, our aunts and uncles, we were met with icy silences punctuated with terse “we don’t talk about that” or “That’s not something you should ask her about”. Clearly there was something in her past that made my family uncomfortable and unwilling to air in the light of day. It was something ever present and yet unspoken. It would color all visits there as my sisters and I held our tongues and allowed the past to stay buried.
I do not mean to compare my experience with my grandmother to Julie Lindahl’s with her grandfather. My grandmother was not involved in crimes against humanity and was a kind and loving person. Where they are similar however is how families often recoil from discussions of the past. From the legends we build around our families. As Lindahl writes:
“Day to day, most of us live unaware of the extent to which we are influenced by the legends of our own cultures, important stories rich in learning, as long as we do not allow them to become propaganda. By the time I was in my early twenties and had started to become conscious that the story of my own family was troubled, I was fully immersed in the propaganda of our culture’s legends. To pursue the answers to my questions risked the unimaginable, which only dared to reveal itself in the many fearful nightmares that fade in daylight. Yet, like the art we remember because it uncloaks our emotions, the nightmares left permanent traces. In them I had become the cause of suffering among those I loved, the object of their wrath, and, as a consequence, endured an expulsion from the safe structures that I had once known. Somewhere at the root of all this fear was the legacy of human evolution, which made the family, the tribe, the basic unit of safety. It follows that to question it must be to bring ourselves down.”
This fear of truth lest it “bring ourselves down” is what makes this book so remarkable.
Over six long years, Lindahl set out to discover the truth about her grandfather and ultimately herself. Her journey takes her to Germany, Poland, Paraguay and finally Brazil. What she discovers through archives and eyewitness testimony from survivors is harrowing and emotionally draining. With each person who speaks with her about the immediate aftermath of the war when her grandfather fled Germany for Latin America, it feels like another punch to our gut and yet another brick removed in a wall built by decades of secrecy. Lindahl rarely stops asking herself if this is at heart a selfish project. Does the benefit of “knowing” outweigh the pain caused in others by dredging up the sins of the past? Never more so then when she interviews in 2012 a 90 year old man named Kisnewski who can barely hear but may have information about her grandfather. After saying her grandfather’s name and getting no response, the old man’s granddaughter screams it into his ear. When he recognizes the name he begins to shout, grabbing his head in clear psychic pain, as his mind slips back to the war years and the beatings. It is terrifying to read on a page. I cannot begin to know how terrifying it was to the author to witness or the old man to relive. Which is why Lindahl screams at her companions to end the interview.
And yet this harrowing episode would be more the exception than the rule. What she would find is a remarkable number of people willing to and relieved to talk about the past. Some had been beaten and tortured by her grandfather and yet Lindahl finds a compassion and a willingness to forgive that is moving beyond words.
In one case, she interviews a Polish man named Januszewski who more than likely was the son of her grandfather’s gardener who had repeatedly and brutally beaten.
“So many things suggested that Januszewski was the son of the gardener, although I hadn’t dared ask him. Yet, what I could be certain of was that this man who as a child had been slave labor to my grandfather and had watched his nearest having the life beaten out of them with regularity had seen to it that the descendant of his family’s oppressor could walk free. Without question, it was the most selfless act I had ever witnessed.”
There are many similar examples where Lindahl enters an interview unsure what she will find, only to receive warmth and forgiveness.
To be sure, there are some, namely Lindahl’s grandmother who at 103 years old was still unable to show contrition for the sins of her husband, that chose to embrace the racist and violent ideology he upheld as a necessary evil. To argue that her and others like her were simply products of their time however, is unacceptable. Lindahl does not shy away from the idea that we all make choices and must take responsibility for the fallout from them:
“There is no doubt that I will need to seek forgiveness for the wrongs that I have done to my own children. The heedless sapping of the earth’s resources caused by the brazen hyperconsumerism of my generation will no doubt be our greatest wrongdoing. Did we have choices? Yes, we did. Did we make them? Yes, we did.”
And that perhaps is ultimately what this book is about. It is not about the brutality of her grandfather. The lack of contrition of her grandmother. It is about those choices. Acknowledging that we made them and a willingness to make amends for them. It is perhaps the hardest thing a human being can do but Lindahl’s complex and absorbing book shows that not only is it possible, but it is the only way to free ourselves from the painful burdens of our history
As a child, I met my grandmother quite infrequently. The yearly visit at Christmas, birthdays, the occasional Easter. It never occurred to me at a young age why despite her relative proximity to us, we rarely visited. As I got older, my sisters and I began to think about this. Was there something in her past that we were unaware of? Asking our mother, our aunts and uncles, we were met with icy silences punctuated with terse “we don’t talk about that” or “That’s not something you should ask her about”. Clearly there was something in her past that made my family uncomfortable and unwilling to air in the light of day. It was something ever present and yet unspoken. It would color all visits there as my sisters and I held our tongues and allowed the past to stay buried.
I do not mean to compare my experience with my grandmother to Julie Lindahl’s with her grandfather. My grandmother was not involved in crimes against humanity and was a kind and loving person. Where they are similar however is how families often recoil from discussions of the past. From the legends we build around our families. As Lindahl writes:
“Day to day, most of us live unaware of the extent to which we are influenced by the legends of our own cultures, important stories rich in learning, as long as we do not allow them to become propaganda. By the time I was in my early twenties and had started to become conscious that the story of my own family was troubled, I was fully immersed in the propaganda of our culture’s legends. To pursue the answers to my questions risked the unimaginable, which only dared to reveal itself in the many fearful nightmares that fade in daylight. Yet, like the art we remember because it uncloaks our emotions, the nightmares left permanent traces. In them I had become the cause of suffering among those I loved, the object of their wrath, and, as a consequence, endured an expulsion from the safe structures that I had once known. Somewhere at the root of all this fear was the legacy of human evolution, which made the family, the tribe, the basic unit of safety. It follows that to question it must be to bring ourselves down.”
This fear of truth lest it “bring ourselves down” is what makes this book so remarkable.
Over six long years, Lindahl set out to discover the truth about her grandfather and ultimately herself. Her journey takes her to Germany, Poland, Paraguay and finally Brazil. What she discovers through archives and eyewitness testimony from survivors is harrowing and emotionally draining. With each person who speaks with her about the immediate aftermath of the war when her grandfather fled Germany for Latin America, it feels like another punch to our gut and yet another brick removed in a wall built by decades of secrecy. Lindahl rarely stops asking herself if this is at heart a selfish project. Does the benefit of “knowing” outweigh the pain caused in others by dredging up the sins of the past? Never more so then when she interviews in 2012 a 90 year old man named Kisnewski who can barely hear but may have information about her grandfather. After saying her grandfather’s name and getting no response, the old man’s granddaughter screams it into his ear. When he recognizes the name he begins to shout, grabbing his head in clear psychic pain, as his mind slips back to the war years and the beatings. It is terrifying to read on a page. I cannot begin to know how terrifying it was to the author to witness or the old man to relive. Which is why Lindahl screams at her companions to end the interview.
And yet this harrowing episode would be more the exception than the rule. What she would find is a remarkable number of people willing to and relieved to talk about the past. Some had been beaten and tortured by her grandfather and yet Lindahl finds a compassion and a willingness to forgive that is moving beyond words.
In one case, she interviews a Polish man named Januszewski who more than likely was the son of her grandfather’s gardener who had repeatedly and brutally beaten.
“So many things suggested that Januszewski was the son of the gardener, although I hadn’t dared ask him. Yet, what I could be certain of was that this man who as a child had been slave labor to my grandfather and had watched his nearest having the life beaten out of them with regularity had seen to it that the descendant of his family’s oppressor could walk free. Without question, it was the most selfless act I had ever witnessed.”
There are many similar examples where Lindahl enters an interview unsure what she will find, only to receive warmth and forgiveness.
To be sure, there are some, namely Lindahl’s grandmother who at 103 years old was still unable to show contrition for the sins of her husband, that chose to embrace the racist and violent ideology he upheld as a necessary evil. To argue that her and others like her were simply products of their time however, is unacceptable. Lindahl does not shy away from the idea that we all make choices and must take responsibility for the fallout from them:
“There is no doubt that I will need to seek forgiveness for the wrongs that I have done to my own children. The heedless sapping of the earth’s resources caused by the brazen hyperconsumerism of my generation will no doubt be our greatest wrongdoing. Did we have choices? Yes, we did. Did we make them? Yes, we did.”
And that perhaps is ultimately what this book is about. It is not about the brutality of her grandfather. The lack of contrition of her grandmother. It is about those choices. Acknowledging that we made them and a willingness to make amends for them. It is perhaps the hardest thing a human being can do but Lindahl’s complex and absorbing book shows that not only is it possible, but it is the only way to free ourselves from the painful burdens of our history
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January 30, 2024Om hjälpsamma goda förstående människor som hjälper en förtvivlad efterkommande. Att vi inte är våra föregångare, vikten av att prata om historien och den återkommande diskussionen om ondska - vad det är, kommer ifrån och växer
August 4, 2018
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
The Pendulum is a personally recounted story of a historian's search for the truth about her family's history during and after WWII. She was born in Brazil where her grandparents had emigrated after the war. The family history was forbidden or glossed over or simply reinvented. She decided as an adult to confront the ghosts of the past in order to try and understand her family and herself more fully.
Author Julie Lindahl is a storyteller and historian and does a meticulous job of describing and documenting her journey to unearth her grandparents' personal involvement in the war as enthusiastic National Socialist German Workers' Party members (i.e., Nazis). As a former Fulbright scholar and graduate of Oxford University, she's a well trained academic with impressive credentials, but what struck me about this book was not the academic precision, but the basic humanity. All families have 'skeletons' lying buried. There are always things which are no-go zones, whether it's a distant relative's drinking problems or their great-great-grandmother's transportation to Australia. Few of those skeletons leave such long shadows as the ones resonating down to the present day from the second world war, at least in the west.
I personally grew up in a family where questions about WWII weren't really allowed (or at least emphatically not encouraged) and it wasn't until I was an adult that I really understood that my paternal grandfather's entire family perished and that he was the only survivor. The trauma and survivor's guilt left him with lifelong depression which also colored my father's childhood and upbringing. Despite the problems, he was my grandfather and I adored him. I can very easily understand the same dichotomy Ms. Lindahl describes in her book. How do you even begin to try to reconcile the person you knew as a loving family member with the history which you objectively know to have happened?
I look around at the political climate and the horribly unthinkable things which are happening in the full light of day today, which would simply not have happened even ten years ago and I shiver. There have been wounds festering for the better part of eighty years which really should have been acknowledged and dealt with long ago. There's a metastasis occurring now, today, in many places in the USA and Europe and if we don't do something, we're destined to go down the same road. It's absolutely chilling.
Anyhow, this book is very well written. It doesn't provide much that will thrill actual historians, it's not a history book. It's emphatically not dry or academic. It's more of a journal. It's not a long book, 256 pages, and I devoured it in a couple of sittings. There is an interestingly eclectic further suggested reading list appended to the end of the book, many of which were previously unknown to me.
This would make a really superlative group or bookclub read.
Five stars, meticulously written, gripping, sad but occasionally humorous as well.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
The Pendulum is a personally recounted story of a historian's search for the truth about her family's history during and after WWII. She was born in Brazil where her grandparents had emigrated after the war. The family history was forbidden or glossed over or simply reinvented. She decided as an adult to confront the ghosts of the past in order to try and understand her family and herself more fully.
Author Julie Lindahl is a storyteller and historian and does a meticulous job of describing and documenting her journey to unearth her grandparents' personal involvement in the war as enthusiastic National Socialist German Workers' Party members (i.e., Nazis). As a former Fulbright scholar and graduate of Oxford University, she's a well trained academic with impressive credentials, but what struck me about this book was not the academic precision, but the basic humanity. All families have 'skeletons' lying buried. There are always things which are no-go zones, whether it's a distant relative's drinking problems or their great-great-grandmother's transportation to Australia. Few of those skeletons leave such long shadows as the ones resonating down to the present day from the second world war, at least in the west.
I personally grew up in a family where questions about WWII weren't really allowed (or at least emphatically not encouraged) and it wasn't until I was an adult that I really understood that my paternal grandfather's entire family perished and that he was the only survivor. The trauma and survivor's guilt left him with lifelong depression which also colored my father's childhood and upbringing. Despite the problems, he was my grandfather and I adored him. I can very easily understand the same dichotomy Ms. Lindahl describes in her book. How do you even begin to try to reconcile the person you knew as a loving family member with the history which you objectively know to have happened?
I look around at the political climate and the horribly unthinkable things which are happening in the full light of day today, which would simply not have happened even ten years ago and I shiver. There have been wounds festering for the better part of eighty years which really should have been acknowledged and dealt with long ago. There's a metastasis occurring now, today, in many places in the USA and Europe and if we don't do something, we're destined to go down the same road. It's absolutely chilling.
Anyhow, this book is very well written. It doesn't provide much that will thrill actual historians, it's not a history book. It's emphatically not dry or academic. It's more of a journal. It's not a long book, 256 pages, and I devoured it in a couple of sittings. There is an interestingly eclectic further suggested reading list appended to the end of the book, many of which were previously unknown to me.
This would make a really superlative group or bookclub read.
Five stars, meticulously written, gripping, sad but occasionally humorous as well.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
August 21, 2023
Julie blandar, på ett utmärkt sätt, fakta från sin forskning kring morföräldrarnas nazistiska historia med tankeväckande frågeställningar och slutsatser.
October 20, 2019
While the subject is engaging enough, and while it's easy to understand its importance to author, this book leaves me feeling rather 'meh'. It reads more like endless introspection than anything else. Which might well be the point - but it's not for me.
September 6, 2020
Det är både intressant och skrämmande att läsa (lyssna) om Julie Lindahls 6-åriga sökande efter sin familjs förflutna. Att hennes morfar - Opa - var en hård och bitvis brutal man kom inte som någon överraskning för henne, men hon mådde väldigt dåligt när hon träffade människor som utsatts för hans misshandel och vrede. Hon känner skam och skuld och jag tycker det är mycket starkt av henne att genomföra sin resa, även om hon på inget vis kan klandras för sin Opas beteende. Att även hennes mormor - Oma - var med i SS var jobbigare att hantera. Jag upplevde en dubbelnatur hos Oma - kanske för att i någon mån rättfärdiga sitt förflutna? Oma har betytt mycket för Julie Lindahl och hon levde fortfarande när researchen gjordes, vilket gav Julie en hel del dåligt samvete. Oma ville inte att det skulle grävas i det förflutna och flera gånger undrade Julie om det var själviskt av henne att fortsätta. Samtidigt var hon trött på tystnaden och alla lögner. Genom sitt sökande efter sanningen känner hon att skammen och skulden har lättat från hennes axlar - och förhoppningsvis från familjens kommande generationer.
Jag har aldrig tidigare läst en bok från detta perspektiv, vilket gjorde det extra intressant. Jag kan förstås inte sätta mig in i Julie Lindahls situation, men jag tror ändå att jag kan förstå varför hon känner som hon gör, trots att hon inte kan klandras för sina morföräldrars värderingar och ideologi. Jag skulle förmodligen känna något liknande, även om det inte är riktigt logiskt...
Jag har aldrig tidigare läst en bok från detta perspektiv, vilket gjorde det extra intressant. Jag kan förstås inte sätta mig in i Julie Lindahls situation, men jag tror ändå att jag kan förstå varför hon känner som hon gör, trots att hon inte kan klandras för sina morföräldrars värderingar och ideologi. Jag skulle förmodligen känna något liknande, även om det inte är riktigt logiskt...
January 7, 2020
I enjoyed this read. It gives the audience another perspective on the lineage of SS soldiers and how one such family looked for it. Wanting to know more about what their family had done in the past. Understand maybe why they searched for the answers that their family members attempted to keep buried. It was a book I felt bad putting down once I started it.
The perspectives of the individuals who interacted with the family was important because there were different points of views and memories. That's important. We look to the past not only for ourselves but for answers.
The perspectives of the individuals who interacted with the family was important because there were different points of views and memories. That's important. We look to the past not only for ourselves but for answers.
July 14, 2020
I had a hard time getting into this book and struggled my way through it. That was probably more of a me issue than anything else. I first heard of this book via a podcast where the author talked about her story, that’s what got me interested. However, in this narrative, it felt like there were some things missing – as deeply as she delved into certain aspects of her family history, her parents seemed to be absent. I really wish she had focused on that generation a little more. It was a powerful and worthy subject to explore but it just didn’t grab me the way I had hoped it would, and I’ve read a lot of memoirs about people who are struggling to come to terms with a deeply troubled and violent family history.
September 10, 2022
Julie’s memoirs of her six year journey of traveling and research to learn about her family’s nazi past is moving, heavy at times, and entertaining as well. Nothing is black and white in her quest, where she expected hatred or redemption for her family, finding none of them. History is complex, and the personal motivations of each individual to contribute to it are sometimes the reflection of their own mistakes, fears, insecurities, and irrational belief systems. Julie’s understanding of her grandparents contribution to the SS, and to nazi Germany is also a personal and painful journey where she seeks to heal the generational wound of secrets and silence that has hunted her family for decades
May 14, 2020
3.5 stars.
The writing wasn’t the smoothest at times and the book took a bit of time to draw me in, but as a history and genealogy buff I found Lindahl’s story about trying to trace and understand her family’s history and their choices interesting. I noticed some reviewers felt that the book was lacking background information regarding German history/culture, the occupation of Poland, postwar migration to South America, etc. — while this wasn’t a problem for me, looking back I can see how readers without much previous knowledge of these topics could feel lost or miss some of the nuances of the story.
The writing wasn’t the smoothest at times and the book took a bit of time to draw me in, but as a history and genealogy buff I found Lindahl’s story about trying to trace and understand her family’s history and their choices interesting. I noticed some reviewers felt that the book was lacking background information regarding German history/culture, the occupation of Poland, postwar migration to South America, etc. — while this wasn’t a problem for me, looking back I can see how readers without much previous knowledge of these topics could feel lost or miss some of the nuances of the story.
February 9, 2020
Nästan där men ändå inte. Kanske var hon för trogen verkligheten. Ändå intressant med den nazistiska mormodern utan ånger. Eller..
December 25, 2021
Intressant ämne, men förvånansvärt icke-medryckande. Språket känns snårigt - undrar om det skulle ha fungerat bättre om jag läst originalet i stället för översättningen?
June 21, 2022
Läsvärd.
November 3, 2020
En viktig berättelse, dock fanns mycket ytterligare att önska av formen, urval och stilistik.
July 28, 2018
This book was hard for me to get into... It was a thoroughly researched book about the author's journey, but I just didn't enjoy it. Too much information that just seemed to drag on and on. I will say it had to be hard for all family members involved to have to deal with knowing someone in their family was in the SS.
October 13, 2020
One of the most personal, intimate, truthful, and generous memoirs about facing the past that I have ever read. If you're wondering whether there's hope for us all after all that's happened, you can find it in the courage you read here.
And not for nothing, it reads like a mystery novel. You'll be pulled right into the story. — DBM
And not for nothing, it reads like a mystery novel. You'll be pulled right into the story. — DBM
April 2, 2019
Interesting read, although it took me a while to get into it.
December 20, 2020
I heard this author interviewed on NPR several months ago and was so gripped by her story that I sat in the carport for an extra 20 minutes after getting home to hear the whole interview. I’ve read countless books by holocaust survivors, as well as works by their descendants, but I think this may be the first I’ve read by a descendant of one of the perpetrators.
This was a fascinating story about one woman’s dogged pursuit to uncover the truth about her Nazi Grandparents. It raised so many good questions about what responsibility we may have for the actions of our ancestors and about the impact of generational trauma. The author wrote, “At some point, each of us senses that what is behind us is also a part of us, and if we choose never to look back, we live in denial ourselves, the very definition of suffering. The burden of shame motivated me to seek forgiveness for deeds I had not committed myself, a fruitless and exhausting rat race.” Yet, she writes she felt “a sense of responsibility for pointing out the necessity to our humanity of looking back…For the descendants of the perpetrators, I have long sensed that there is a violence we commit when we choose to look away from the deeds of our forebears. It haunts us, depresses us, and twists our families until such time as we stop murdering the past repeatedly by our neglect.” She attributed her pursuit of the truth about her family to the “unbearableness of not knowing.”
In her journey to uncover what her Grandfather had done and what exactly her Grandmother had known about it, she grappled with the question of “evil.” She wrote she has often objected to the term because “it can become a label that we use to absolve ourselves from trying to understand the human condition.” By all accounts her Grandfather was the epitome of evil and was very sadly never brought to justice for his crimes. It was depressing and alarming to read about the elaborate efforts used to shield former Nazis and aid their escape to Latin America as well as the embrace with which they were met in these countries and the sympathy that still exists in many parts for them to this day.
As the author learned about the horrific crimes committed by her Grandfather she writes about living with the daily discomfit of knowing what we are capable of, “I know what it is to succumb to the false idea that there is no real truth, only perception, in order to guard my own treasured hopes and beliefs. We are now experiencing this disease in the form of “alternative facts.” It opens a black hole into which the fall is endless.”
In tracking down an Uncle in Paraguay who the family believed was dead, she finds a person still unwilling to fully confront the past. She described her journey as a lifelong desperate search for signs of remorse but sadly, she found only evidence to the contrary. She wrote about the conversation with her Uncle, “where ethical considerations get set aside for pleasantry…two well-meaning people conversed about the unthinkable without decisively rejecting it…” I read other interviews with the author in which she comments on the rise of fascism around the world as well as her current work with holocaust descendants to help tell this story, “It's about the different paths that we could take. One is the politics of exclusion and division, the route of following leaders who tell us that certain people should be kept out, exercised as a tool of power. And the only logical conclusion of that sort of politics is murder.”
SPOILER ALERT: I kept waiting to read a forthright and righteous confrontation with her family members that were still living but it never came. By the end of the book, for the people closest to the horrific events, it appeared that she chose to confirm facts and elicit information rather than condemn. It was frustrating and unsatisfying that she did not do so while she had the opportunity to, at least not within the pages of this book. Perhaps she concluded it was pointless since they obviously showed no remorse. There was so much left unsaid and unexplained but I imagine many of these things are still questions the author is grappling with and coming to terms with. She concludes the book by noting that justice only succeeds if we pursue it. I imagine she will be pursuing the details of her family’s story for the rest of her life.
This was a fascinating story about one woman’s dogged pursuit to uncover the truth about her Nazi Grandparents. It raised so many good questions about what responsibility we may have for the actions of our ancestors and about the impact of generational trauma. The author wrote, “At some point, each of us senses that what is behind us is also a part of us, and if we choose never to look back, we live in denial ourselves, the very definition of suffering. The burden of shame motivated me to seek forgiveness for deeds I had not committed myself, a fruitless and exhausting rat race.” Yet, she writes she felt “a sense of responsibility for pointing out the necessity to our humanity of looking back…For the descendants of the perpetrators, I have long sensed that there is a violence we commit when we choose to look away from the deeds of our forebears. It haunts us, depresses us, and twists our families until such time as we stop murdering the past repeatedly by our neglect.” She attributed her pursuit of the truth about her family to the “unbearableness of not knowing.”
In her journey to uncover what her Grandfather had done and what exactly her Grandmother had known about it, she grappled with the question of “evil.” She wrote she has often objected to the term because “it can become a label that we use to absolve ourselves from trying to understand the human condition.” By all accounts her Grandfather was the epitome of evil and was very sadly never brought to justice for his crimes. It was depressing and alarming to read about the elaborate efforts used to shield former Nazis and aid their escape to Latin America as well as the embrace with which they were met in these countries and the sympathy that still exists in many parts for them to this day.
As the author learned about the horrific crimes committed by her Grandfather she writes about living with the daily discomfit of knowing what we are capable of, “I know what it is to succumb to the false idea that there is no real truth, only perception, in order to guard my own treasured hopes and beliefs. We are now experiencing this disease in the form of “alternative facts.” It opens a black hole into which the fall is endless.”
In tracking down an Uncle in Paraguay who the family believed was dead, she finds a person still unwilling to fully confront the past. She described her journey as a lifelong desperate search for signs of remorse but sadly, she found only evidence to the contrary. She wrote about the conversation with her Uncle, “where ethical considerations get set aside for pleasantry…two well-meaning people conversed about the unthinkable without decisively rejecting it…” I read other interviews with the author in which she comments on the rise of fascism around the world as well as her current work with holocaust descendants to help tell this story, “It's about the different paths that we could take. One is the politics of exclusion and division, the route of following leaders who tell us that certain people should be kept out, exercised as a tool of power. And the only logical conclusion of that sort of politics is murder.”
SPOILER ALERT: I kept waiting to read a forthright and righteous confrontation with her family members that were still living but it never came. By the end of the book, for the people closest to the horrific events, it appeared that she chose to confirm facts and elicit information rather than condemn. It was frustrating and unsatisfying that she did not do so while she had the opportunity to, at least not within the pages of this book. Perhaps she concluded it was pointless since they obviously showed no remorse. There was so much left unsaid and unexplained but I imagine many of these things are still questions the author is grappling with and coming to terms with. She concludes the book by noting that justice only succeeds if we pursue it. I imagine she will be pursuing the details of her family’s story for the rest of her life.
July 5, 2021
From the first sentence of Julie Lindahl’s The Pendulum--now in a new UK edition--we realize that we are in a very special history. “If I looked back would I, like Lot’s wife, turn into a pillar of salt?” But look back she does with extraordinary courage, depth, and sensitivity to search for “her family’s forbidden Nazi past.” The secrecy of her grandparents’ activities under the Nazis has paralyzed three generations with unacknowledged guilt and shame and cut them off from each other across continents. The Pendulum has the reader spellbound from first page to last as a mystery story, a history of the Nazi years, and the subsequent murkiness of silence and denunciations that makes it hard to tell victim from perpetrator.
From 1989 to 2017 we follow Lindahl’s adventurous, lonely, and often dangerous detective work as she moves between Germany, Poland, and Latin America, driven by “the unbearableness of not knowing.” She herself is haunted by guilt, especially when confronting her grandmother with whom she has a strong bond, but who refuses to take responsibility for their past in the SS and their escape to Brazil after the war. Instead, she uses a pendulum to make self-serving judgments about good and evil. Julie, by contrast, sees complexity, asking herself: “Was the search for truth as important as finding the grace to forgive?”
The book’s motto “for the angels of hope” expresses Lindahl’s faith that by facing the raw truth about the suffering we as a species have wrought, we will open our hearts to love all human beings. On her journey Lindahl experiences such love, whether in the kindness of strangers she encounters, the forgiveness of her grandparents’ victims, or the embrace of a lost family. Lindahl’s moving and dramatic story, written from the perspective of 2017, also serves as a reminder that we all must take on the burden of truth and reckon with our countries’ pasts if we are to move forward at all.
Gabrielle Robinson, author of Api’s Berlin Diaries
From 1989 to 2017 we follow Lindahl’s adventurous, lonely, and often dangerous detective work as she moves between Germany, Poland, and Latin America, driven by “the unbearableness of not knowing.” She herself is haunted by guilt, especially when confronting her grandmother with whom she has a strong bond, but who refuses to take responsibility for their past in the SS and their escape to Brazil after the war. Instead, she uses a pendulum to make self-serving judgments about good and evil. Julie, by contrast, sees complexity, asking herself: “Was the search for truth as important as finding the grace to forgive?”
The book’s motto “for the angels of hope” expresses Lindahl’s faith that by facing the raw truth about the suffering we as a species have wrought, we will open our hearts to love all human beings. On her journey Lindahl experiences such love, whether in the kindness of strangers she encounters, the forgiveness of her grandparents’ victims, or the embrace of a lost family. Lindahl’s moving and dramatic story, written from the perspective of 2017, also serves as a reminder that we all must take on the burden of truth and reckon with our countries’ pasts if we are to move forward at all.
Gabrielle Robinson, author of Api’s Berlin Diaries
January 9, 2024
Qual o nosso papel diante da maldade perpetuada pelos nossos antepassados? Como se livrar da correnteza de culpa e humilhação derivada dessa estranha relação com os agressores que, por vezes, também chamamos de pais, avós e afins? "The Pendulum" apresenta uma jornada íntima, em primeira pessoa, executada por Julie Lindahl, uma autora e educadora que mora na Suécia, mas que nasceu no Brasil, neta de um membro da elite do partido nazista alemão. Julie nos apresenta uma escrita saborosa, poética na medida certa, repleta de pequenos extratos de vida para além dos principais temas da sua investigação, presentes nas primeiras reflexões que coloco aqui. É fascinante entender, de uma forma tão íntima, de dentro do núcleo familiar, as relações de violência e poder que vão da invasão nazista na Polônia às fugas em massa para o interior do Brasil. Ter acesso a uma investigação assim, no núcleo familiar, com toda uma carga afetiva para além das notas frias dos livros de história, é algo único. Com todos esses pontos positivos, preciso comentar alguns pontos de atenção. Julie tem um olhar muito europeu quando descreve países da América Latina. Sua ignorância diante de nuances políticas, aspectos comportamentais e sociais é latente. Alguns trechos são especialmente difíceis em relação a isso. Para Julie, o Brasil é um país que beira a sua caricatura - onde todas as pessoas andam armadas, a corrupção é generalizada e a violência existe em níveis absurdos. Há um pouco de verdade em ALGUMAS das premissas que ela carrega em si, mas a forma como seus medos generalizam e potencializam essas questões é um tanto problemática. Também vale notar que Julie por vezes prolonga demais algumas discussões e reflexões ao nível da exaustão. Coisas que já compreendemos anteriormente. Encontrei, inclusive, um parágrafo repetido em meio a tudo isso. Apesar de me incomodar com isso, também entendo que seu livro parte de um lugar muito íntimo, um segredo velado e asfixiado da história da sua família. Admiro a coragem e a determinação de Julie.
January 23, 2021
I rounded my rating up from 3 1/2 stars to 4. This book asks the question of what would we do if we learned our parents or grandparents were part of an organization that is now reviled? Ms. Lindahl's grandparents were Nazis and her grandfather was even part of the elite.
The author starts early and continues throughout her family biography expressing "guilt and shame." It finally got boring and even silly. It made no sense before she even knew about her family's hidden history to feel guilt and shame. She was a child! Those emotions are only useful if they cause a change. She had nothing to change. She was never a Nazi and didn't support the cause in any way.
Ms. Lidahl was lucky there were so many people along the way who were willing to help her. Many of them were paid or doing their own research so there was a mutual benefit. She often kept a low profile or blurred the complete reason for her travels. I was impressed that the people who had been oppressed by Nazis, and even by her grandfather, were forgiving and helpful. I imagine many others whitewashed over their own questionable or borderline behaviors. Dwelling on bad things and injustices makes us bitter and ill so it's healthier to find positive and good things. Also our perceptions are different and sometimes change over time. I wasn't completely convinced with some of the witnesses' recollections. Of course, some only looked back with regret with what they lost or could have been been.
My father used to say, "If you go back far enough in researching your family tree you'll find one of them hanging from it." He was so right. What is most import is the present. I think it can be useful to learn the good and bad about our ancestry. By using our own free will we create our own history.
The author starts early and continues throughout her family biography expressing "guilt and shame." It finally got boring and even silly. It made no sense before she even knew about her family's hidden history to feel guilt and shame. She was a child! Those emotions are only useful if they cause a change. She had nothing to change. She was never a Nazi and didn't support the cause in any way.
Ms. Lidahl was lucky there were so many people along the way who were willing to help her. Many of them were paid or doing their own research so there was a mutual benefit. She often kept a low profile or blurred the complete reason for her travels. I was impressed that the people who had been oppressed by Nazis, and even by her grandfather, were forgiving and helpful. I imagine many others whitewashed over their own questionable or borderline behaviors. Dwelling on bad things and injustices makes us bitter and ill so it's healthier to find positive and good things. Also our perceptions are different and sometimes change over time. I wasn't completely convinced with some of the witnesses' recollections. Of course, some only looked back with regret with what they lost or could have been been.
My father used to say, "If you go back far enough in researching your family tree you'll find one of them hanging from it." He was so right. What is most import is the present. I think it can be useful to learn the good and bad about our ancestry. By using our own free will we create our own history.
January 12, 2021
I was looking forward to this story, I have a particular liking for multigenerational stories, and this one is of course not only true but also a difficult one. Unfortunately I wasn't convinced. I find that the author's self-pity often overshadowes the findings that she makes about her family. My understanding is that it is her way to show respect towards those who have had to suffer the horrors that her grandparents committed, but for me it ends up being more about her than all the people affected by nazism then and still today.
The historical facts are often vague and I sometimes struggled to put things into context and understand what it it's that she is looking for and what exactly her grandfather has done and when in time it actually happened.
Still, I understand that this is a personal journey that must have been very difficult and significant for her and her family. Unfortunately it feels just like that, something personal where she tries to let the reader in but doesn't quite manage to do. There are many factors missing, such as the role that her parents and her mothers siblings have had. Perhaps this is because they have not wished to be a part of it, but it does make it feel like a big part is missing.
However, I did learn a few things, such as the fact that many (former) nazis emigrated to Brazil and about how they took over land in many places, such as Poland. The writing is often beautiful, even though it is also sometimes halting a bit. The author also meets many interested and committed people along the way, and I think she does justice to their help and efforts.
The historical facts are often vague and I sometimes struggled to put things into context and understand what it it's that she is looking for and what exactly her grandfather has done and when in time it actually happened.
Still, I understand that this is a personal journey that must have been very difficult and significant for her and her family. Unfortunately it feels just like that, something personal where she tries to let the reader in but doesn't quite manage to do. There are many factors missing, such as the role that her parents and her mothers siblings have had. Perhaps this is because they have not wished to be a part of it, but it does make it feel like a big part is missing.
However, I did learn a few things, such as the fact that many (former) nazis emigrated to Brazil and about how they took over land in many places, such as Poland. The writing is often beautiful, even though it is also sometimes halting a bit. The author also meets many interested and committed people along the way, and I think she does justice to their help and efforts.
January 6, 2024
I had never heard of this book and had a friend not given it to me, I doubt I would have ever encountered it. It’s an intense book to read as the author, born in Brazil of a mother whose parents emigrated from Germany post WWII and now living in Sweden, decides she wanted to know more about her grandparents history, sparked by several evasive conversations with her grandmother with whom she had a good relationship. So she began to dig and what she discovered disrupted her view of her grandmother and her heritage. The Nazi ties of her Grandparents were much deeper than she ever expected. Her investigation took her to Germany, Poland, Paraguay, and Brazil, searching archives and meeting family members that she had always been told were dead. She visited people that had known her grandparents pre and post-war, both Holocaust survivors and, to her surprise, unrepentant Nazis who even as they faced their own mortality in the 21st century, still held to the tenets of the Third Reich. She found secrets that had been covered up for years and that had affected her in ways she didn’t realize.
Julie Lindahl’s enlightened me not only to the history of Nazis in the post war era but to the damage done to the generations that followed, an embodiment of the Biblical passage in Exodus (34:7) of God “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children…”
Julie Lindahl’s enlightened me not only to the history of Nazis in the post war era but to the damage done to the generations that followed, an embodiment of the Biblical passage in Exodus (34:7) of God “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children…”
November 9, 2020
Julie Lindahl, the author, thinks that is it possible that her grandfather, who emigrated from Germany to Brazil following World War II, was a Nazi. No one in her family will talk about it, and really, she doesn't want to ask. She quickly discovers that he was a member of an elite segment of the SS. But still, she wonders, was this something he was forced to do or was this his choice.
With the power of hindsight, Julie gains a new understanding of some of her Grandmother's passing comments. Those that seemed just out of touch before take on a new sinister meaning now that she knows something about her Grandfather's role.
What surprised me about this book was that I guess I just always thought that all the Nazis went to jail after the war. That seems foolish now, given that they were such a great proportion of Germany's working aged men. It seems that many of these men went back to normal lives, almost like they had just been playing a game, and when it ended they went back home. Even worse, for some of the Nazis, the beliefs held strong long after the war, and they were able to get together and help each other.
I didn't love this book, but it certainly gave me a new perspective.
With the power of hindsight, Julie gains a new understanding of some of her Grandmother's passing comments. Those that seemed just out of touch before take on a new sinister meaning now that she knows something about her Grandfather's role.
What surprised me about this book was that I guess I just always thought that all the Nazis went to jail after the war. That seems foolish now, given that they were such a great proportion of Germany's working aged men. It seems that many of these men went back to normal lives, almost like they had just been playing a game, and when it ended they went back home. Even worse, for some of the Nazis, the beliefs held strong long after the war, and they were able to get together and help each other.
I didn't love this book, but it certainly gave me a new perspective.
November 9, 2024
I am not sure how a book with such an interesting premise manages to be so boring.
Julie VERY gradually finds out that her grandfather was a brutal and terrifying SS officer. Somehow there really isn't enough "meat" for this book. At 170 out of about 230 pages I can't even make the last effort to finish it. The book follows this basic structure:
1. Julie learns information confirming that her grandfather wasn't just an SS man, he was particularly terrible
2. Julie confronts her grandmother, who tells her that he wasn't in the SS and the Holocaust didn't happen
3. Julie is shocked and disturbed
This is the entire book. I did not think that her insights were particularly interesting. She visits some people who interacted with her grandfather in the war. Some of them don't want to talk to her. Some of them do. We spend a long time in this book going around Poland not learning anything new. We also go to Paraguay and don't learn anything new.
I really think this would have worked better as a series of blog posts.
Julie VERY gradually finds out that her grandfather was a brutal and terrifying SS officer. Somehow there really isn't enough "meat" for this book. At 170 out of about 230 pages I can't even make the last effort to finish it. The book follows this basic structure:
1. Julie learns information confirming that her grandfather wasn't just an SS man, he was particularly terrible
2. Julie confronts her grandmother, who tells her that he wasn't in the SS and the Holocaust didn't happen
3. Julie is shocked and disturbed
This is the entire book. I did not think that her insights were particularly interesting. She visits some people who interacted with her grandfather in the war. Some of them don't want to talk to her. Some of them do. We spend a long time in this book going around Poland not learning anything new. We also go to Paraguay and don't learn anything new.
I really think this would have worked better as a series of blog posts.
August 20, 2018
Julie grew up believing she’d done something wrong. She finally learned her grandparents were Nazi SS during the war. They remained unrepentant, and cast long shadows of bitterness over their children and grandchildren.
Her grandfather was a member of the mounted SS, and enjoyed beating Poles. Her grandmother believed the Poles to be dirty and disorganized, and should have been grateful to the Germans for bringing order. To the end of her life, she believed the Holocaust to be a lie; people didn’t have a bad time in the labor camps. It was just Jewish propaganda. The SS men were the best sort.
Nature weeds out the weak and allows only the best and strongest to survive. That’s what the Germans did, according to the grandmother. Now it’s best to let history rest in peace.
This is a sobering look at how the descendants of diehard Nazis struggle to cope with their heritage.
December 12, 2020
Den absolut enda dåliga aspekten jag kan hitta med denna bok är att metaforerna ibland blev lite många. Förutom det sugs man in i en djupt personlig historia om det som varit och det som kommer efter. Man kastas in i historian, och flytet mellan fakta och känsla är mycket bra skriven.
Som barnbarn till en som kämpade i kriget (Frankrikes sida) kändes det rörande vad Lindahl gick igenom och på ett sätt förstår jag smärtan när hon gjorde detta, och på ett sätt inte. Jag kan bara föreställa mig hur det känns att vara så nära människor som gjorde så fruktansvärda saker. Många gånger blev jag tårögd och var tvungen att ta en paus från läsandet. Jag frågar mig själv hur min farfar hade reagerat på denna bok och det sårar mig vad han och så många andra behövde gå igenom.
Alla skulle tjäna något på att läsa denna bok.
Som barnbarn till en som kämpade i kriget (Frankrikes sida) kändes det rörande vad Lindahl gick igenom och på ett sätt förstår jag smärtan när hon gjorde detta, och på ett sätt inte. Jag kan bara föreställa mig hur det känns att vara så nära människor som gjorde så fruktansvärda saker. Många gånger blev jag tårögd och var tvungen att ta en paus från läsandet. Jag frågar mig själv hur min farfar hade reagerat på denna bok och det sårar mig vad han och så många andra behövde gå igenom.
Alla skulle tjäna något på att läsa denna bok.
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