Jennifer Teege (born 29 June 1970) is a German writer. Her maternal grandfather was Austrian SS Nazi concentration camp commander and war criminal Amon Goth . 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 [ edit ]

Teege, who was born Jennifer Goth 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  [ de ] , who had a two-year relationship with Amon Goth until the end of the Second World War , and with whom she had a daughter, Monika Hertwig  [ de ] , 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 Goth 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 [ edit ]

• Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon. Mein Großvater hatte mich erschossen . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2013, ISBN   978-3-498-06493-8 .
  • English edition: My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past . Translated by Carolin Sommer. Workman Publishing Company. 15 April 2015. pp. 2?. ISBN   978-1-61519-253-3 .

Holy Holocaust [ edit ]

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 Teege is voiced by German-Israeli actress Gabriela Borschmann.

In Holy Holocaust , Berman-Herzberg narrates how her friendship with Teege was affected by the latter being Goth'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.

On November 10, 2022, The New Yorker uploaded Holy Holocaust on its official YouTube channel. ^[12]

See also [ edit ]

• Afro-Germans , the ethnic group which Teege is a part of.
• Inheritance (2006 film) , a PBS documentary about Monika Hertwig  [ de ] , Teege's mother.

References [ edit ]

External links [ edit ]

• Neo-Griot interview with Jennifer Teege, author of ‘My grandfather would have shot me’.
• Q&A with Jennifer Teege (August 12, 2015), Jennifer Teege talked about her book.
• Jennifer Teege, granddaughter of a Nazi war criminal ? interview at Deutsche Welle English (video, 29 mins)