News release from IPFW:
Jennifer Teege, author of “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me,” Speaks at ACPL on August 17 at 7:00 p.m.
Event co-sponsored by IPFW Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center, and Congregation Achduth Vesholom Education Committee(July 25, 2015) – Author Jennifer Teege, born to a German mother and a Nigerian father, accidentally discovered that her family had a dark secret — her grandfather commanded a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.
Teege will speak about her experience at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library on Monday August 17 at 7:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public, and her internationally bestselling book My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past will be available for purchase.
“Family history research is so key to the understanding of history; indeed, our stories are our history,” said Curt Witcher, the manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library which, along with the IPFW Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Congregation Achduth Vesholom, is a co-sponsor of the event. “In My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me, Jennifer Teege engages her readers in the amazing journey of discovering her family history. Ms. Teege’s presentation of facts and insights invites readers to live this journey with her.”
Co-written by award-winning journalist Nikola Sellmair, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me tells a story of a woman who discovers the truth about who her grandfather was. After picking up a book in a German library by chance, she discovered that her grandfather was none other than the infamous Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Kraków-P?aszów Concentration Camp during World War Two. Goeth was the main antagonist in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1993 movie Schindler’s List, and was portrayed by actor Ralph Fiennes. He was executed in 1946 after being found guilty of war crimes by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland.
“Like so many others, I had seen Schindler’s List,” Teege said in a recent statement. “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, and I know that I am a different person.”
The event is co-sponsored by the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (IHGS). The Institute, headed by Dr. Steven Carr, associate professor of communication, promotes public awareness of the Holocaust and other genocides worldwide; encourages and supports scholarship, research, and teaching at IPFW about the Holocaust and genocide; and promotes public participation in efforts both to confront contemporary genocide as it occurs and to engage in genocide prevention efforts around the globe.
“Teege’s story demonstrates how the Holocaust and its history continues to reverberate across the lines of genealogy, race, and nationality,” Carr said. “Bringing this international best-selling author to the Allen County Public Library is just one of the ways the IPFW Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is working with organizations like the Genealogy Center to show the continued relevance of Holocaust history to Northeast Indiana.”
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