Jennifer Teege
BornJennifer Göth
(1970-06-29) 29 June 1970
Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
OccupationAuthor
LanguageGerman
NationalityGerman
Alma materSorbonne University
Period2015–present
Genrememoir
Notable worksMy Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past (2015)
Children2
RelativesMonika Hertwig (mother)
Ruth Irene Kalder (maternal grandmother)

Jennifer Teege (born 29 June 1970) is a German writer. Her maternal grandfather was Austrian SS Nazi concentration camp commander and war criminal Amon Göth. Her 2015 book My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past was a New York Times bestseller.

Life

Teege, who was born Jennifer Göth to a Nigerian father and an Austrian-German mother, grew up in foster care.[1] She was adopted at the age of seven.[2] Her grandmother was Ruth Irene Kalder, who had a two-year relationship with Amon Göth until the end of the Second World War, and with whom she had a daughter, Monika Hertwig, who was born in November 1945 and whom he never met.[3] Teege studied at the Sorbonne, and learned Hebrew in Israel where she studied for five years.[4]

At the age of 38, Teege unexpectedly found out about her family history, by picking up a book in a Hamburg library that happened to be her mother Monika Hertwig's biography and where she discovered that Amon Göth was her grandfather, which caused her to plunge into a severe depression. She decided to combat her depression and come to terms with this revelation by writing her book My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me.[5][6] Her book was a success and became a New York Times bestseller. Translations of the book, which was originally published in Teege's native language, German, have been made into Danish, English, French, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.[7][8][9][10][11]

Works

  • Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon. Mein Großvater hätte mich erschossen. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-06493-8.

In 2021, Noa Berman-Herzberg, Teege's Israeli friend and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, partnered with Osi Wald to direct a local animated biographical short film titled Holy Holocaust. Berman-Herzberg narrates the film, while German-Israeli actress Gabriela Börschmann voices Teege.

In Holy Holocaust, Berman-Herzberg narrates how her friendship with Teege was affected by the latter being Göth's granddaughter and the publication of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me.

Holy Holocaust premiered on September 1, 2021, as a Jerusalem Film Festival entry.

In November 2022, The New Yorker uploaded Holy Holocaust on its website and official YouTube channel.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "My Nazi grandfather, Amon Göth, would have shot me". BBC. 3 October 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  2. ↑ "Jennifer Teege Holocaust Remembrance Day Program". Sixth & I. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  3. ↑ Teege, Jennifer (7 April 2015). My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me. Workman Publishing. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-1615192540. Retrieved 23 October 2015 – via Google Books preview.
  4. ↑ "Jennifer Teege, Granddaughter of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth". Deutsche Welle. 1 December 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  5. ↑ Snyder, Don (5 March 2014). "My Nazi Grandfather Would Have Shot Me". NBC News. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  6. ↑ Westfall, Sandra Sobieraj (27 March 2015). "How an Author Is Coping with the Discovery That Her Grandpa Was a Nazi". People. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  7. ↑ Beason, Tyrone (16 April 2015). "'My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me': a Nazi in the family". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  8. ↑ Philyaw, Deesha (5 June 2015). "When the skeleton in the family closet is a Nazi". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  9. ↑ NPR Staff (11 February 2015). "What's It Like To Be Black And Have A Famous Nazi Grandfather?". Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  10. ↑ "Jennifer Teege: My Nazi grandfather would have shot me | The Sunday Times". www.thesundaytimes.co.uk. Archived from the original on May 28, 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  11. ↑ "«Мой дед расстрелял бы меня»: воспоминания внучки коменданта концлагеря Амона Гёта". Forbes.ru. 28 May 2023.
  12. ↑ Aizenman, Hannah (9 November 2022). "An Ancestor's Atrocities Challenge a Friendship in "Holy Holocaust"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
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