Adar/Nisan 5777 • March 2017
Granddaughter of Nazi war criminal to speak in Sylvania to their surroundings. I carry responsibility not only as a German woman, or as Amon Goeth’s granddaughter, but simply as a person.” Teege and her husband reside in Germany with their two sons. In some respects, she shares her story with them in mind. “[…] I thought that it was important to share my story in part because of a quote I read years ago, from Bettina Goering, another descendent of a perpetrator. She said that she and her brother had had themselves sterilized, so as not to produce any more Goerings,” Teege recalled. “I think that that attitude sends the wrong message. There is no Nazi gene: We can decide for ourselves who and what we want to be.”
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Team Friendship
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PJ Playdates
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Come Hear Author
Jennifer Teege
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 at 7 p.m. Franciscan Center of Lourdes University 6832 Convent Blvd, Sylvania No charge for admission
Ruth Fajerman
Markowicz
Holocaust Resource Center of Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo
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By Emily Gordon Imagine living 38 years with an idea of who you are, only to have that sense of self shattered in an instant. That’s what happened to international bestselling author Jennifer Teege after what was supposed to be an ordinary trip to her local library. Teege, a black Nigerian-German woman who was adopted by a white German couple after her biological mother and grandmother severed ties with her when she was seven, randomly picked up a book off a shelf and recognized the women’s images in it. The book turned out to be about her biological mother’s experience surrounding an ugly family secret: she was the daughter of Amon Goeth, Nazi commandant of Płaszów. Teege was stunned to realize she was the granddaughter of the “butcher of Płaszów,” and that if he had known her, he would have killed her for being black. On April 5, Teege will speak about the life-altering discovery during a free presentation at the Franciscan Center of Lourdes University in Sylvania sponsored by Federation and Foundation’s Jewish Community Relations Council, the Ruth Fajerman Markowicz Holocaust Resource Center, and the Toledo Lucas County Public Library. Teege will also be speaking to area high school students in a separate event as part of Federation's Diversity Program. “Once I compared my life to a puzzle. There were so many pieces, but the frame was missing,” the author recalled in “An Interview with Jennifer Teege, author of ‘My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past’ (The Experiment, April 2015)” on theexperimentpublishing.com. Teege, who wrote her book with journalist Nikola Sellmair, revealed in the interview she had suffered from depression growing up because she felt she didn’t fit in and didn’t know much about her family tree. Today, the author “can put the pieces into a frame, and they make up a clear picture – things aren’t in a big mess anymore,” she said in the interview, even if the picture doesn’t look like anything she could have ever imagined. The revelation was a “traumatic experience” for Teege, she said. “Like so many others, I had seen the movie Schindler’s List. I was terrified of that monstrous figure-and now I was petrified: Was it possible that I might resemble him? Today that fear is gone. I know that I am a different person,” she explained. Teege researched her grandfather in depth, even visiting the sites of his crimes. She also reconnected with her biological mother. The journey to accepting her family’s secret and her family tree allowed Teege to confront her anger and disappointment toward her birth mother and change the image she had of her to “a woman with her own story and history. She suffers from the weight of the past,” she said. Teege notes that she no longer worries about resembling her grandfather. “I know now that I am not to blame, and the guilt no longer weighs heavily on my shoulders. That said, today I am occupied with the concept of my responsibility,” she said. “Everyone bears a responsibility to add value