World

In Israel, Biracial German Author Probes Her Nazi Heritage

Published

10 years ago

February 19, 2015

In this Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015 photo, German author Jennifer Teege poses during the Jerusalem International Book Festival. Tiege is the granddaughter of Amon Goeth, the notoriously cruel camp commander of the Plaszow concentration camp portrayed by actor Ralph Fiennes in the Academy Award-winning film “Schindler’s List.” (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

ARON HELLER, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — When Jennifer Teege stumbled upon a book in a Hamburg library seven years ago, the biracial German woman who was given up for adoption as a child was stunned to discover a deep family secret that shook her to the core.

Her maternal grandfather was the brutal SS Commander Amon Goeth, who ran a concentration camp in Plaszow, Poland, in World War II and whose cruelty was so chillingly portrayed by actor Ralph Fiennes in the 1993 Oscar-winning movie “Schindler’s List.”

“It really turned my world upside down,” said Teege, who has written a memoir about her soul-searching experience entitled “My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me” — a reference to the Nazis’ racist ideology.

In Israel, her story resonates on many levels. The country is home to the world’s largest community of Holocaust survivors. It is also the place where Teege lived as a student for several years, became fluent in Hebrew and first saw Steven Spielberg’s epic movie — long before she knew the dark secret of her origins.

Discovering that she traced her lineage to a man described as “the symbol of evil” sent Teege into intensive psychotherapy. Her therapist broke down in tears when he heard her tale, she said.

“It was very difficult for me to deal with this because I have a very unique relationship to Israel and with the Jewish people,” said the 44-year-old Teege, now a mother of two. She spoke to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Jerusalem International Book Fair that showcased her book’s Hebrew edition. An English version is coming out in April.

Goeth was notorious for shooting Jewish inmates for sport at the concentration camp in Plaszow, a Krakow suburb, and for getting his dogs to attack them. The German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved more than 1,200 Jews by bribing Goeth and other Nazis to have them work in his factories rather than be sent for extermination in death camps.

Known as the “Butcher of Plaszow,” Goeth was convicted as a war criminal and hanged in 1946.

Teege’s astounding revelation and the book that followed were just the latest chapters in her troubled biography, from a childhood spent in foster homes to a prolonged estrangement from both her biological parents, to her struggles with prejudice in Germany because of her dark skin and the suicide of her grandmother, with whom she was very close.

It all led to several bouts of depression, but she said that finding out about her ancestry helped bring a “sense of closure.”

“Life is like a puzzle, so today I have a lot of pieces that were missing,” she said. “It is a story that you would never ever invent because no one would believe that it is true. But it is true.”

Teege’s maternal grandmother, Ruth Irene Kalder, was a secretary in Schindler’s factory and it was he who introduced her to Goeth, whose wife remained in Austria while he ran Plaszow.

Their affair produced Teege’s mother, Monika Hertwig, whose memoir “I Have to Love My Father, Right?” was the book Teege found in the Hamburg library that set her on her journey.

Teege’s mother had a brief affair with a Nigerian student but was already in another relationship by the time Teege was born in 1970, and she was sent to an orphanage as an infant. She maintained occasional contact with both her mother and grandmother until she was formally adopted at the age of seven. When she was 13, she found out that her grandmother had killed herself and only much later in life did she track down her biological father in Africa.

In her early 20s, long before discovering her family legacy, she followed a friend to Israel, where she learned Hebrew and completed an undergraduate degree at Tel Aviv University. She then returned to Germany, married and started a family.

She sees a physical resemblance between herself and Goeth but believes he would turn over in the grave if he learned he had a black granddaughter with close ties to Israel and Jews.

She said one of the things that motivated her to write her book was reading an interview with the grandniece of Nazi leader Hermann Goering, who told the AP in 2008 that she had herself sterilized to end her blood line.

Teege rejects the premise of such an extreme measure.

“You decide who you want to be. It is your character and you set an example that you can be different. It is not connected to genes,” she said.

The hardest part for Teege was reconciling how Goeth, a killer of Jews, was also the man her grandmother deeply loved.

“I cannot understand how she could have loved him. I think this was the biggest problem that I had,” she said.

In Israel, Teege met with one of the few people left in the world who actually came face-to-face with Goeth.

Rena Birnhack, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was on Schindler’s list — the famous list naming those who were to be spared for labor — remembers being confronted by a tall, daunting Goeth at the “selection” line after the Krakow ghetto was liquidated.

Goeth decided who would be deported to Auschwitz and who would live a bit longer in his labor camp. Under a blanket, Birnhack held two puppies and offered them as a gift. Goeth let her live.

Decades later, reading Teege’s book, Birnhack found out Goeth kept the puppies and Kalder raised them in their home inside the Plaszow camp. She asked her granddaughter to track down the author and they met in the Israeli city of Haifa last week.

“All the memories came rushing back,” an emotional Birnhack said of the meeting. “Among the hundreds that he killed, he kept me alive … I can’t forgive the Germans for what they did to us but I have sympathy for Jennifer.”

___

Follow Heller on Twitter @aronhellerap

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

French Gov’t Survives No-Confidence Vote Triggered by Rebels

Don't Miss

Chelsea Fans in Paris Prevent Black Man from Boarding Train

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

Newsom, Pelosi Welcome Election of First American Pope; Call for Unity and Compassion

“In his first address, he reminded us that God loves each and every person,” said Newsom. “We trust that he will shepherd us through the best of the Church’s teachings: to respect human dignity, care for the poor, and wish for the common good of us all.” Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

Published

2 months ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Pope Leo XIV. Screenshot.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom on May 8 issued a statement congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his historic election as the first American to lead the Catholic Church.

The announcement has drawn widespread reaction from U.S. leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called the moment spiritually significant and aligned with the values of service and social justice.

In their statement, the Newsoms expressed hope that the newly elected pope would guide the Church with a focus on compassion, dignity, and care for the most vulnerable. Newsom said he and the First Partner joined others around the world in celebrating the milestone and were encouraged by the pope’s first message.

Newsom also expressed hope that the pontiff’s leadership would serve as a unifying force in a time of global instability.

“May he remind us that our better angels are not far away — they’re always within us, waiting to be heard,” he said.

Pelosi, a devout Catholic, also welcomed the pope’s election and noted his symbolic connection to earlier church leaders who championed workers’ rights and social equality.

“It is heartening that His Holiness continued the blessing that Pope Francis gave on Easter Sunday: ‘God loves everyone. Evil will not prevail,’” said Pelosi.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Retired Bay Area Journalist Finds Success in Paris with Black History Tours

In the late 90s, Stevenson finally realized her dream of living in Paris, now with her daughter. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend gave her a stack of cash and encouraged her to expand on the knowledge that she had only started to share with people she knew.

Published

5 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Ricki Stevenson, Blacks in Paris. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

There were two things Oakland-born, East Palo Alto-raised Ricki Stevenson always dreamed of:

Going to New York as a newscaster to tell the true story of Blacks in America.
Living and working in Paris one day.

Her dreams of life in Paris began when she was three years old and her mother, a former professional dancer, took her to see Josephine Baker perform. She was 11 when her parents took her to the Stanford University campus to meet James Baldwin, who was speaking about his book, “The Fire Next Time.” Ricki says that’s when she knew she’d one day live in Paris, “the city of light!”

But before that would ever happen, she had a tumultuous career as a newscaster across the country that was inspired by her family’s history.

Stevenson recalls marching with Cesar Chavez as he fought for labor rights for farm workers in California.

“Are we Mexican too?” she asked her parents. “No, but we will fight for everyone’s human rights,” they responded to her.

Ironically, Ricki’s paternal family roots went back to Greenwood, Oklahoma, infamous for the 1921 bombing of Black Wall Street. A time when Black people had oil wells, banks, and a thriving business community.

This background would propel her into a 25-year journalism career that gave her the opportunity to interview greats like President Jimmy Carter, PLO leader Yassir Arafat, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, UN Ambassador Andrew Young, Miriam Makeba, and the leaders of South African liberation movements.

A job offer from KCBS radio brought her back to the Bay Area in the 1980s. Then came the switch to TV when she was hired as a Silicon Valley business reporter with KSTS TV, working at the first Black-owned television station in northern CA (created and owned by John Douglas). Along the way, Stevenson worked as an entertainment reporter with BET; coproduced, with her disc jockey brother Isaac, a Bay Area show called “Magic Number Video;” lived in Saudi Arabia; worked as an international travel reporter with News Travel Network; and worked at KRON TV a news anchor and talk show host.

In 1997, Stevenson realized her dream of living in Paris with her young daughter, Dedie. She started exploring the history of Africans in the city and would go on to teach others the same. Her business, which she named Black Paris Tours (BPT), received a significant boost when a family friend, Admiral Robert Toney put a chunk of money in her hand. He said, “Ricki, my wife and I have been coming to Paris for 20 years, but in just two days with you and Dedie, we’ve learned and seen more than we ever did before.”

Years after BPT took off, Ricki met Nawo Carol Crawford and Miguel Overton Guerra, who she recruited as senior scholar guides for Black Paris Tours.

Guerra says he is proud of his work with Black Paris Tours in that it provides a wealth of information about the rich legacy of African and African American history and influence in Paris and Europe.

“I tend to have a feeling for history always being a means of a reference point backwards … you start to understand the history, that it isn’t just the United States, that it began with African people,” Guerra says.

He said that it’s been a pleasure to watch people learn something they didn’t know before and to take them through the city to key points in Black history, like hangout spots for writers like Baldwin and Richard Wright, restaurants in the busiest parts of Paris, the home of Josephine Baker and so much more.

Although the tours are open to all, Guerra hopes that those of African descent from all over the world can embrace that they don’t have to just stay where they are because movies and media have portrayed cities like Paris to be only white, it’s multicultural and accepting to all.

“We’ve been here, and we’ve been there, going way back when. And we shouldn’t be considered or consider ourselves to be strangers in any place that we go to,” he said.

Stevenson notes they’ve had 150,000 people take their tour over the years, with notables like former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Smokey Robinson, Steve Harvey, Miriam Makeba, and more.

Friends and former media colleagues of Stevenson compliment the BPT crew on their knowledge of the city and their ability to always keep it interesting.

“He [Guerra] just had a deep, deep wealth of knowledge and he was constantly supplanting information with historical facts and the like. I love that it was demonstrating and showing how Black people have thrived in Paris or contributed to the culture in Paris,” Candice Francis said.

She toured in the summer of 2022 and stated that in the two weeks that they visited Paris, BPT was the highlight of her trip. She shared that she was proud of Stevenson and the life she’d managed to manifest and build for herself.

“Even if you’re visiting Paris for the tenth time, if you haven’t taken the tour, then by all means, take it,” Francis emphasized.

Magaly Muñoz, Gay Plair and Paul Cobb also contributed to this story. You can book your own adventure with Black Paris Tours at www.blackparistour.com.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

COMMENTARY: Will a Dictator’s Loss Change Trump’s Tune?

What’s happened in Syria has the potential of reshaping the politics of the entire Middle East. The U.S. can’t afford to sit back and do nothing. Now is the time to exert peaceful, diplomatic influence on how Syria maintains stability and goes forward with a new democracy.

Published

7 months ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Emil Guillermo

In our polarized country, half of America can’t wait, while many of us still wonder, “where’s Kamala?”

I hope President-elect Trump — who famously said during the campaign that he’d be a dictator on day one — eats his words.

Dictators aren’t doing so well these days.

Last weekend, the dictator Bashar al-Assad was run out of Syria and sought exile with his puppet master/dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia. In just about two weeks, a coalition of rebels applied enough pressure to end a family regime in Syria that lasted 50 years.

al-Assad’s wealthy family dictatorship plundered Syria and ruled in terror.

It sounds all too familiar to Filipino Americans, many of whom came to the U.S. fleeing the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

al-Assad’s end was different from the Filipinos who forged a peaceful People Power movement that chased the Marcos family to Hawaii where they sought refuge from their U.S. puppet handlers.

But as in Manila, there was cheering on the streets of Syria. Men, women, and children. Christian, Muslims, different sects and ethnicities, all united against al-Assad.

al-Assad has been described as a genocidal narco-trafficking tyrant, whose friends were America’s biggest enemies, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, on CNN.

Moustafa said it was amazing that there would be no more Russian airstrikes, no more al-Assad gulags torturing civilians. “To see good triumph over evil is an amazing thing,” he added.

But last weekend has some trickle down.

Consider that we are talking about al-Assad, the one Tulsi Gabbard consorted with and hyped to her colleagues when she was in Congress. Now Assad has been shamed into exile with his puppet master Russia, and Gabbard wants to be the U.S. director of national security? Given her wrongheaded judgment on al-Assad, can she be trusted with any national secrets?

It’s still not over in Syria, as now there will be a scramble to see what kind of governing democracy emerges.

Predictably, Donald Trump has said, “The United States should have nothing to do with it. This is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved.”

Nouveau isolationism?

Overall, the ouster of the dictator should give Trump pause.

If by nominating MAGA loyalists like Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, Trump’s testing the evolution to strongman rule in the U.S., he should consider what happened before last weekend.

In South Korea, a weak president tried to declare martial law and was voted down by Parliament. That’s a faux strongman.

Let’s hope Trump learns a lesson from the week’s news.

The next president sets the tone for a politics that’s already toxic.

He needs to remember the joy in Syria this week when an autocrat was dumped in the name of freedom and democracy.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning Bay Area journalist. His commentaries are on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. Or join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok