>> ray fines and steven spielberg's shinder's list.

>> c-span: jennifer >> guest, in your book, you wrote, "i am the granddaughter of a mass murderer." how hard was that? >> guest: to find out was very difficult. now, to live with it is ok because a long time passed and i came to terms with the fact. today, i think that yes, it is a big responsibility, but it's not a burden anymore. >> c-span: your book, which is called, "my grandfather would have shot me," has all of the characters in your life and i want to put on the screen what - there's the book on the screen, but i also want to put on the screen the chart that shows your family and have you briefly explain, and we'll come back and talk about it, there you can see up at the top is your grandfather on the right, amon goeth. who was he? >> guest: my grandfather was a war criminal. he's known to millions of people because he was depicted in the move, "schindler's list," but he was not a movie character. i mean, he was a real person and he was put on trial in poland

after the war. he was convicted of the murder of thousands of people and he was hanged after the war in 1946, very close to the former concentration camp in plaszow. >> c-span: let me go back to that chart and show your grandmother, and what was her relationship to amon goeth, ruth irene kalder? >> guest: my grandmother was a women that met my grandfather while she was working for oscar schindler. they - he introduced her to him, and they - she was smitten by my grandfather - my biological grandfather from very beginning, and they lived together in plaszow and even after the war, and my grandmother still she loved him very much. she took on his name, although they hadn't been married, but they - she was more, i would say, like, she was sort of his wife. >> c-span: you mentioned, plaszow. what is that? >> guest: plaszow is the concentration camp. its concentration camp that was run by my grandfather and my grandmother and my grandfather, you know, stayed there for a period of, i think, yes, several years

together. >> c-span: go back to the chart. right below that is a woman whose name is monika hartwig. who is she? >> guest: monika hartwig is my biological mother. she married and this her married - the name that she took on when she was married, but she's also monika - she was born as monika goeth, and she's the daughter of ruth irene and amon. >> c-span: did you know her? >> guest: yes, she's my biological mother and i - she gave me up for adoption, but we were in contact for - yes, for were in contact for - yes, for the first years of my life. she gave me to an orphanage when i was four weeks old, but

we stayed in contact. and only when i was seven years old, we lost contact because i was adopted by a white german family and thereafter haven't seen her for many, many years. but until seven years, we stayed in contact. >> c-span: have you seen her in the last seven years? >> guest: yes, i did. so. >> c-span: where does she live? >> guest: she lives in germany. >> c-span: where was she born? >> guest: she was born in germany. >> c-span: let's go back to the chart one more time, and off to the side there, and we don't have a name for this, is your biological father and he was nigerian. >> guest: yes, he's nigerian. >> c-span: where is he now? >> guest: he's also living in germany. he was a student when he came to germany and i would talk about it a bit more later on when we talk about the family structure. actually,

my biological parents met in the household of my grandmother. he came as a student to germany and then he went back to nigeria for a while, but today, he's living in germany. he's married. he's married to a german teacher and they have more kids. so i have a bunch of half siblings. >> c-span: when was the first time you met your biological father? >> guest: in my 20s. i was never really interested in my father maybe because as a child i grew up with my - with the knowledge of who my biological mother and grandmother was, but my father, i only knew his name because the name was on my birth certificate and somehow maybe because i never met him as a child i wasn't ever interested in getting to know him. only when i was 20 and i started site analyzers. i mean, i suffered depression for a while and i became interested in getting to know more about the paternal side about my whole biological family.

then i was in my mid-20s we met each other briefly. >> c-span: the last thing on the chart is - and i know it's not the actual name, but your adopted parents, when did they adopt you and how long did you live with them? >> guest: as i said, i came to orphanage very - when i was very small, four weeks old, and i stayed in the orphanage until i was three. it was an orphanage actually for babies. so when i was three, i had to leave the orphanage and one tried to find foster families for the kids in the orphanage. and i was lucky because they had an inferior (ph) they were looking for a child, and somehow i came into the family. i stayed there as a foster child for three years, and when i was seven they adopted me, and this was also the moment when cuts with my mother - my biological mother were - ties with my biological mother got cut. my - it's a bit complicated, but i want to add it. my parents separated before i

was born, and my mother, she married a man who was abusive. so she was in an abusive relationship. and one of the reasons why my adopted parents decided to cut ties was that it was simply not a safe and good environment, the circumstances were really difficult. so they wanted - i didn't have a, you know - a quiet and healthy childhood and this was the reason why they cut ties. >> c-span: you're married? when did you get married? >> guest: it's always a bit embarrassing because i'm so bad with numbers. i think i married 10 years ago, but we are together much longer. >> c-span: and is. .. >> guest: fourteen years, i think. >> c-span: and he's a german? >> guest: yes. >> c-span: where did you meet him? >> guest: i met him in germany and i met him to my work, was actually my boss. so classical story. we fell in love and today, we have two beautiful children done

together. >> c-span: how old are they? >> guest: i can't tell you the exact day - date - the age because i try not to give too much information for - just for security reasons, and also, i incognito so when they are older they can decide for themselves whether they want to share their story with the public. but i can tell you that they are in school in germany. they are in the beginning of their high school education. i don't know which grade it is here in the u.s. yes. >> c-span: you leave where now? >> guest: in germany, in hamburg, but i'm traveling a lot, so i would say i live all over the world. >> c-span: let me show you some video. i know you've seen this. this is from 2006 and it's a documentary done by james moll and is called, "behind the scenes of inheritance. let's watch a little bit of this, we'll see your mother in here, and we'll find out how he did this documentary.

>>2003 i was producing a documentary for the "schindler's list" dvd, a documentary about schindler survivors, and there was a photograph of amon goeth, who was the commander of plaszow. we needed the rights to the photograph and they were owned by monika, his daughter. so i simply called her to ask for the rights to use the photograph in the documentary. we talked for quite a while and suddenly in the middle of the conversation she said, you know, "i'm not my father." so immediately, i thought i want to interview this woman. in "schindler's list," ray fiennes portrayed amon goeth and there are those scenes where he's standing on the balcony of the villa overlooking the camp and he's holding his rifle and he's shooting at the prisoners of the camp. that's monika's father and when she was 11 years old, she discovered the truth about who her father was.

he was a nazi. he was a concentration camp commandant and he was responsible for the murder of thousands of jews. >> c-span: why did you want to write a book about this? >> guest: it was a decision that i did not make immediately after i found out who my biological grandfather was. it was something that i decided over a long period when i - when i myself understood more, i thought that what happened to me is such an extraordinary story and it's a story that one needs to share. and this was one of the main reasons why i decided to write it down and to share it with the public, but there was another reason. the reason was that i came across a quote by batina gury (ph) and batina gury (ph) is the grandniece of gury

was the chief commander of the air force - the german air force during the nazi era, and she and her brother both decided to and when i read this, i was stunned because i thought this was so utterly wrong. so i thought it's important to set a different and to set a positive example because you yourself decide who you want to be, you know? it's not something that is connected to genes. so this was one of the major reasons why i decided to write the book. >> c-span: you published your - this book first overseas in 2013. it was named, "amon," or "amon" and now, the book in the united states is, "my grandfather would have shot me." why did they change the name? >> guest: the title was, "amon,"

but the subtitle was always, my grandfather would have shot me." i think this was one of the reasons that it's - for the u.s. market they decided to do it because the name, "amon" is not so known. i myself preferred "amon" because, first of all, it's more literal name like more, like, literature, and the book is non-fiction book, but for me, it is a - yes, it's a book like more in the belletristic field. but the reason why i or we decided in germany to publish was, "amon," the name is so striking because in our family, names play a very, very important role. and when you notice, the name of my mother is monika and the nickname of my grandfather, my biological grandfather, was "monique (ph)" and there are some other aspects. for example, the name is a jewish name. also, the name of my grandmother is a biblical name, and there's another point because my - i have a half-sister and she gave the

name, "amon" - not only the name, "amon," also jewish name, but a combination of two names to her son. so it shows that the family history is transmitted into the next generation, into the fourth generation. all these reasons were for the sole striking that i thought "amon" is the right title, but when you want to sell a book, you know, you also have to look at the market and for me, it's important to spread so if this message is spread with this title, i'm fine with it. and the title is also interesting because the new title, "my grandfather would have shot me" because it makes - when you look at me, you see the color of my skin. i'm black. so you first think the title is because i'm - i look so differently, but what is more important is the inside.

will see that my character is very different, and this is also why i think the new title is a good decision. >> c-span: another thing you tell us about yourself in the book is that you're 6 feet tall. >> guest: yes, and i have a high heels. >> c-span: and you have high heels on. what impact is that high in your life that you're, you know - you stick out in a crowd? >> guest: i always sticked out, you know? when i - when i grew up, i grew up in a - in a neighborhood in germany where i was the only black child. so for me being someone who is not average is so normal. when i walk around in the street, i don't notice anymore that people look at me. it's funny because my husband, he's also very tall, but only when i'm in the surrounding - for example, in asia where people are very small and it goes with - it's really intense that people look at us. i notice it, but normally no, i just, you know - i'm so used to it.

>> c-span: go back to your grandfather, amon goeth. if we were to follow him or - and he died at age 37 - if we were to follow him around and watch the awful things that he did, what would we see? >> guest: i don't understand. >> c-span: i say if we were to follow him around when he was alive and he was the head of this concentration camp, what - and he was - did so many bad things, what would we see that he did? shooting people, the dogs and all that? >> guest: yes, you would see a tremendously cruel person, a person who - yes, who was - i mean, he was capable of - he had dogs. he had two dogs. he called them, "ralph" and "rolph" and he trained them to tear a human apart. i think this sums it up really good. he was a person who had - there was a pleasure that he felt when he - when he - when

he - when he killed people, and this is, yes, something that when you're normal if you don't have this aspect in your personality, it is very, very difficult to grasp. and i remember in the very beginning when i found out when i discovered who my biological grandfather was, this aspect of his personality, the cruelty was one of the, you know, facts. this was most difficult for me to somehow come to terms with it because it's something that is so far from what you can imagine how people can be. now, maybe you know when we have the political situation of today and i just - was just thinking about isis people, you know, who slaughter other people, then it somehow gets normal, but this is not normal, you know? this is something that you can't - you can't treat people like this. it's something - and i think

within a person or within yourself, that should be - there's a humanity, you know? this is an aspect and that when we look at the nazi era and my grandfather, just got lost. >> c-span: when he was hanged after the war in 1946, who hanged him? >> guest: he was put on trial actually by the polish government. he was not at the nuremberg trial. he was extradited to poland. he was extradited together with the commandant of auschwitz with hess. there's an interesting detail what i read when they arrived in poland and they wanted to stone amon goeth, you would imagine that they want to stone hess because hess was the one who's more known. >> c-span: rudolf hess? >> guest: rudolf hess, yes, but probably because of the cruelty, the way he really shoot them himself people he himself killed people and that the mass wanted to stone him. >> c-span: let me show some

video because in the end when he was hanged, it was one of the stranger things to see. it's on video and here was the end of your grandfather when he was - when he was put to death. >> we're not going to show the last part when he was actually hanged. you've - i assume you've seen that before?

what was your reaction to that when you saw it? >> guest: i saw the execution just hours after i discovered the biography about my mother in the library. so i was already in shock. and when i saw the execution for the first time, i did not expect that it would not work out because this is something that is so serial. and i remember myself sitting in front of the tv and though i was - i didn't know whether to cry or to laugh, not to cry because of i was sad, but this is something that was - yes, it was just not real. interestingly, i read that today - i don't know, maybe this is just something that is invented, but historians, they try to figure out whether this was really my grandfather and some say it was someone else. it was, i think, his name is ludwig fisher.

ludwig fisher. i did some research. i don't know. maybe it's just a theory that it's not right. i always when i watched it i thought it was my grandfather - my biological grandfather. well, someone asked me what i think or what i think that he deserved to be hanged, it's a very difficult question. i think he did so much evil so he needed a punishment. i'm against the death penalty. i'm a person who truly believes that the death penalty is something that you have to be very careful because if you make a mistake, you can't change it. i think my grandfather deserved the highest punishment that you can get, yes. >> c-span: how many people died in the concentration camp around where plaszow and poland is? >> guest: i don't know. >> c-span: how did - you - but in your book you talk about auschwitz and that whole area that there were a million people? >> guest: thousands, but also if you look at the trial of my grandfather, he was put on trial for thousands of jews, but he also was, for example, involved in the eviction of the ghetto in krakow.

so i don't know how you can sum it up. and i also, you know, think the number is not relevant because it's too many anyhow. it's thousands, but i don't - i can't give you an exact number. i don't know. >> c-span: what did you discover about why they all hated jews so much? >> guest: you mean the nazis? >> c-span: what was the reason? >> guest: well, that's a very, very difficult question. i think it was something - when you look at the nazi era, there was a very interesting experiment that was done actually here in the united states after the war. the milgram experiment and there and tried to find out why people, yes, treat other

people the way they treated it in the nazi era. and i think it was not only the jews. i mean, there were also people who were killed, people who did not somehow had the ideology - the nazi ideology. it was also the gypsies, for example, but especially the jews. i think the system - because the system said so, people followed the authority and there are a lot of people who did not reflect. they were just following the authority. and, for example, if you look at my grandmother, my grandmother must have been an anti- semite. i mean, she lived in plaszow. she lived with my grandmother. she supported the system. but after the war, i told you my parents met in the household of my grandmother and my mother - my grandmother somehow mother - my grandmother somehow adopted a different point of view. so it is so weird.

i can't give you an answer why this happened. >> c-span: james moll who did the documentary, "inheritance," and i know you watched that some years ago, here is another - and it was run here on pbs and part of it was also run on the bbc, but here is your mother talking about her father, which is your grandfather. >> i asked my grandmother, "grandmother, do i have a father, too?" and she said, "but monika, every child has a father." and i asked my mother and said, "where's my father?" and she said, "like millions of men, he died for his country and he's dead and shut down." i believed her. i didn't know why i shouldn't believe her. for me, he was everything. he was a great man. he was a soldier and everybody told me if my father had been alive, he was such a nice man and he would do everything for me.

>> c-span: what's your mom like? >> guest: my mom is a difficult person. i mean, she's very typical for the second generation. my mother was always haunted by the past and i think because it was her father, it was very, very difficult for her to separate. and when she looked at her appearance, the photos that we've seen now, they show her - she looks a bit happier than the other pictures in the way i somehow perceive her, but she has - you see on - like, it's - she go and rocks a bit like this. like, the weight is on her shoulder and she can't somehow leave the past behind. i think because it's the father and the identification with the parents for everyone if you look at psychology is so strong. she could never somehow find her own life. she is

haunted by the past until today. second generation. there's another famous example. it's nicholas frank. i don't know whether you heard about him. he's the son of hans frank who was the deputy of hitler in occupied poland, and he has a photo of his father. he was also hanged with the broken neck in his wallet and he looks at it, his face, every day. so they go on and they can't leave the past behind, but they live with it. they feel guilty very often and yes, this is something that i think is a problem for the second generation and i also think it's a bit of a problem for my mother. >> c-span: you - there's a lot of examples of what you're talking about and here's one on video of katrin himmler who is heinrich himmler's great niece, and he was one of the people, of course, most directly responsible for the holocaust.

so let's watch what she has to say about the relationship the family has to, you know, an infamous father like this. (begin video clip) (speaking in foreign language). [speaking in foreign language]

>> c-span: have you run into the same thing where people don't like the name, goeth? they just want - they want it to go away? >> guest: no. no. for me, the name, goeth, i didn't have a relationship to the name, goeth, because it was just for me was a random name. when i found out about who my mother was, about the family path, this was the first time that i understood that goeth was a name that was connected to amon goeth, to the nazi past. so i don't, you know, have this feeling. i think that's when i watched the video i noticed something and katrin himmler, she's married actually to jewish guy today. those are the descendants of perpetrators who knew from the very beginning about the family's past, and for me it is very different because i found out by coincidence.

and i had a life before, and i also had a strong identity before. so i never only identified myself by being a goeth, the granddaughter of amon goeth. i was more identified myself with being jennifer, i would say. the second name i changed. i changed because of the adoption. i changed it because of my marriage. i was always jennifer, and therefore, i think it is far more - it's easier for me or it was easier for me in the long run to find my own identity. for all these people who grow up with their heritage with the difficult heritage, it was almost impossible to leave the past behind. and if i say to leave the past behind, it doesn't mean that i forget, you know, but i want to set a different example and so far that i think, you know, just if you

look back, it doesn't help anyone. the last word of my book is "hope. " i think you have to look forward. in my personal case, for example, i have two children, you know, and i never had a real mother myself. so when i was so depressed, i couldn't be a good mother to them, and this is one of the reasons why i decided, no, i have to go in a different direction. and what i did was i traveled to krakow and in krakow, the former concentration camp is not existing anymore. what you have there today, there's only a statue, a memorial where you can go. and when i understood that i have to leave the past behind, but i don't want to forget, i felt that it would be a good thing to lay there flowers, to lay flowers, to have a symbolic act somehow to go on with my life, but not to forget and to honor the victims, but to go on and live in the future and try to see what i can do with my story. and somehow turn it around, you know, make something positive out of it. >> c-span: you tell us in the book you were born in 1970. if i do the math correctly, that makes you 45?

>> c-span: when did you find out about the fact that your great - your grandfather was amon goeth? >> guest: i was 38. >> c-span: and you lead off the book with it, but where did - where did it happen and how did it happen? >> guest: it happened on a sunny day in august and -- >> c-span: what city? >> guest: it was in hamburg. it's still - it's still my hometown. it was regular, an ordinary day. i didn't suspect anything. in the morning, i got up and my kids were much younger then. i drove them to preschool and i was in the library. it's a huge library with thousands of books and i was there already for a while, maybe half an hour and looking for books. i was in the psychology department. this is also interesting because it was not in the history department.

and suddenly, i saw a book with a red cover that grabbed my attention. so i just could read the spine and on the spine there was the title and it said, "i have to love my father, don't i?" and there was the name of the author. it was a journalist. i didn't know the name. his name was matias ketler. i took the book out of the shelf and i started - at first, i looked at the cover quickly and there was a small photograph, a black and white photograph and of a woman, a portrait, and there was a subtitle and it said, "the life story of monika goeth's daughter of the concentration camp commander of schindler's list. and suddenly, you know, there was a spark of suspicion because goeth, i knew the name goeth, but still, it was too early. i started leaving to the book and first very slowly, but then fast and faster. the book contained text, but also photographs, and there was one photograph that reminded me of my mother.

it was a women with dark hair and there was another picture, and this was actually even picture that was - yes, it was a picture of my - it was a picture of a woman in a flowery dress, and i had one single picture of my grandmother for all these years that i kept and the woman on the photo had the exact same dress. and under the photo there was a caption and it said, "ruth irene. " and then i continued. i skimmed the book and in the end, there was a summarization of biographical details, the name of the woman, the birth date, where she was born and so on and so forth, and at this very moment i understood that it was not a random book that i was holding in hand. >> c-span: let's go back to the chart we have of how everybody is connected and the picture, of course, at the top at the right is amon goeth who is your grandfather. then ruth irene kalder, who was never really married to him, but took his name after he was killed in 1946 by the polish people, she committed suicide in

1983 and how did you know her? when did you know her? >> guest: i know as a child, she and my mother, they would visit me in the orphanage. i would visit them at their house. not often, sporadically, but i've seen her as a child, and this is how i knew her. and i only had very good fond memories of her. due to the fact that my mother was in an abusive relationship, she was also someone, you know, as a child i did not only like her, but she also provided me with safety. maybe there's also a strength, a bond. so when i discovered that she was not only my grandmother, the person that i knew as a child until i was seven, but also a woman who was capable of living outside a concentration camp with a man as

sadistic as amon goeth. this was a major problem for me. it's somehow really -- and yes, plunged into a crisis because i couldn't bring these two in aspects of her personality together. >> c-span: why did she commit suicide? >> guest: there was a, i think - well, two reasons: one reason was she was really, really sick. she had lung disease and she knew that she would die quite soon, but what might have triggered her death was there was a documentary done by a british journalist, john blair is his name, and payne datute (ph), my grandmother, the documentary was done actually for the movie, "schindler's list" and it - there was some of people of the - of the past, like my grandmother, but also, for example, the wife of oscar schindler. they interviewed. they wanted to collect the voices, the statements, and john blair interviewed my grandmother and

after he left the apartment, my grandmother took an overdose of sleeping pills and killed herself. she left a suicide note and i - when i found out, i so desperately wanted to get a transcript of the - of the - of the interview the journalist did because in the suicide note she said nothing about the war, about the past, and i thought,

i don't know. i know one particular time i

recall her saying with her head out, "if i could, i would send you home, but i can't. " >> c-span: now, you tell us - tell us in the book that helen jonas-rosenzweig lives in florida, has married. have you talked to her? >> guest: not yet, but i met her daughter by coincidence. i had a reading event in close to new york and she was in the audience. i didn't know. i never contacted helen because i didn't want to interfere with my mother. i thought, you know, maybe she doesn't feel comfortable with it. i always wanted to meet her, but - so i was really excited when she was in the audience. she asked me a question and hopefully i will meet helen in the future. i have an event scheduled that she might attend. it's going to be really, really interesting. i wanted to say something about the video because what she said about my grandmother, i think that doing nothing also makes you guilty. it is, you know - when you have a car

accident, to give you a different example, and you just drove by and you don't help, this is a criminal act. >> c-span: she though, helen rosenzweig, plays a role in your book. tell us about what her relationship was to your grandfather. >> guest: she was a maid in the household of my biological grandfather and she lived in the house. and in the movie in her terms they chose the encounter between my mother and helen, there's a scene where she's standing in the house and she had to work for my grandfather and she was in constant fear because every day could've been the last day of her life. i think the relationship they had was she was the servant and to obey to the rules. >> c-span: and how - was there - there was another woman though that also was a housekeeper. how cruel was he to them? >> guest: they both lived in the house, both. >> c-span: both jewish?

>> guest: they were both jews, yes, and i don't know. i think in the movie, "schindler's list" by oscar - by steven spielberg, there's a scene, you know, that he somehow approached one of the housekeepers also in an intimate way. one says that was more fiction than reality. i don't know. i think he didn't have really a relationship because he was simply not capable of seeing them as a true human being. he saw them as people he could treat the way he wanted to do so, and this is also the testimony that helen gave that he was - she was treated very, very, very badly, but both by my grandmother, by closing her eyes, and by my biological

grandfather who would beat her, would beat her down the stairs. i mean, to live with constant fear, this is something, you know, you can't imagine. this is something so cruel even if you don't shoot someone, the circumstances in the house were beyond what you can, i think, yes, we won't imagine. >> c-span: when did you first see schindler's list? >> guest: i saw the movie first in israel ironically because i have a very special, yes, bond with israel and the jewish people without knowing about my family's past when i was in - younger when i was in the beginning of my 20s. i moved to israel and i lived there. i lived there for a couple of years. i speak fluent hebrew, and i studied middle eastern politics and history in israel. so i saw the movie in - i had a shared flat, an apartment with a roommate, and i saw the move in israel, a bit later than the others. it was already out for a while, so i have heard some comments about the movie

and i saw it in my flat. i thought it was very moving. >> c-span: there's a - there's a tiny exert here about 30 seconds with ray fiennes who plays, amon goeth, your grandfather, in the movie and here's the famous shot from the balcony where he's got a machine gun in his hand. has your mother watched this? >> guest: i'm sure she watched >> cspan: has your mother

watched this? >> guest: i'm sure she watched it a couple of times. the first that she'd seen the movie i read that she - i mean, she knew who her father was always, but she thought that her father was someone who was - she didn't know really what he was doing. then she got more and more information first and when she was 11 years old, later she got information about a jewish inmate of plaszow, the concentration camp, but seeing the movie for the first time plunged her into an enormous crisis because it's different when you read something or if you hear something. the movie is very - people say it's very close to reality, then she, i think, for the first time she really realized what happened, what kind of person he was. >> c-span: let's go back again to the chart so we can keep track of all the people on it, and we talked about your grandfather, your grandmother, your mother, and then your father earlier who was a nigerian. what's his reaction to this book?

>> guest: i feared with them that i wrote a book, a couple of weeks before the book came -- shared -- out. as i said, we had not been in contact for a long time. i saw him for the first time when i was in my mid-20s, then there was a period where we had no contact. and then i - we reconnected because for me, it was so important that he wouldn't find out by coincident that i'd tell him, you know, i wrote a book and that he doesn't find out by himself. we didn't talk a lot about the past because this time with my father, i didn't want to make the same mistakes that i did with my mother. i really wanted to concentrate our relationship on the present. i wanted to get to know my father, wanted to get to know his side of the nigerian side. i wanted to know more

about how he grew up. so it's not something that we constantly talk about. i think that yes, he thinks about it and he's a very educated man, but it's not something that is a major part of our relationship. >> c-span: how many times have you told this story? do you have any idea? >> guest: not very often because i'm in the public. i talk about the book, i talk about my story, and it's so different to the first years because after i found out about the book, i was - i was unable to speak about it. and now, you think it is easy. it is easy because such a long time passed, but you have to know that after i found out about the secret, the toxic family secret, for the first half year i didn't talk to anyone. i talked to my husband and to my therapist. after half a year, i first talked to my adoptive parents. after one and a half years, i first talked to my biological mother. after more than two years, i shared the secret with my

jewish friends. and now seven years passed. so until the book was published until i was the first time in the media i think there were 10 or 12 people i ever talked about it. >> c-span: what was the reception in germany when you started talking about the book? >> guest: it was received - the book was received very well. when i made the decision to go public, then i knew i can't go back and i tried to - yes, to share everything in this aspect of my life. there are a lot of different aspects that i keep private. for example, the age of my children, stuff like this, but i want people really to understand what happened. i want

them somehow to go with me and understand the conflict. and since i think this is done in a way that people can identify, find themselves in the book, the reception was very, very good. and in germany, yes, the subject or the topic of nazism is something that is it's such a part of german identity. it's a - in school, it's mandatory. we are educated about the holocaust, that even by the educational system now i was approached because they want to use the book in schools. so this - i think this is wonderful. it couldn't be a better result. >> c-span: you name your husband, is getz. you name your kids as claudius and linus, i believe. are those the real names? >> guest: no, also false. >> c-span: on any - in any case? >> guest: yes. >> c-span: and when you travel around, why are you worried about security? >> guest: well, because you never know, you know? there are people out there - i was in the beginning when i went public for the first time i didn't know also, for example, from the white - being of a white part, but what happened, you know, in germany, we have a problem with neo nazis and i just, you know, didn't want to take any risk.

>> c-span: you tell us several times in the book that you had a nervous breakdown or you've had depression. what's that - i hate these kind of questions, but what does it feel like to have depression? can you describe it? >> guest: yes, i tried to - when you - well, i just turn the question back. did you ever yourself feel like you have a day that is a bad day? yes, probably. know? you feel like there's something wrong, but depression is - when it's not a day, it's not a week, it can last for month. and i described it once with a cloud. it's, like, a cloud comes and it's a cloud that will not disappear and

it's a dark cloud. and somehow you're not able to function. you're not able to get up. in my case, i wanted to sleep. i wanted to sleep so badly and - but depression can also have very different symptoms. depression often leads to addiction, you know, to drug abuse or stuff like this. so i suffered depression not only i think because of the toxic family secret, also because of the early deprivation because when you are given up in such an early age, this is difficult for a child, but i - today, i overcome the depression and i think it's due to the fact that the toxic power of the family secret was lifted because if you have something that you don't know, it is still there. it exists on a subconscious level and this is so, so, so dangerous because this ultimately will always lead to some depressive elements in your personality because you don't find yourself.

you can't find your true inner self and you need to have a feeling of who you are for everyone. this is not just true for me. identity, to find your own self, to a have a true feeling of your identity is crucial for everyone. >> c-span: when was the last time you were depressed? >> guest: depressed? i think a few years ago. i had a bad day just a couple of weeks ago. >> c-span: but not the depression that you had? >> guest: no. >> c-span: in what year did you have your nervous breakdown? >> guest: the nervous breakdown, oh, that's - i was diagnosed as post traumatic syndrome, you know, after i found the book. it was seven years ago. and then i had a period where i had to recover. today, i would say i don't suffer depression anymore because the - i'm not afraid that the dark cloud would come back because there's nothing unsolved, you know? it's i compared it once with a puzzle. my problem was - and again, i wouldn't speak more general - if you have in your life a lot of pieces of, like, in a puzzle, you need somehow framework or a frame where you

can put it because otherwise, you don't - you know, you don't - you're not stable. and today, i have the frame and when you have a frame and you can put in the pieces, you don't - you're not afraid that everything breaks down. it's not like a house that is built on sand, you know? you just take out one brick and everything falls into pieces. no. if you have a proper structure, if you have a foundation (ph), then you have a good chance that depression will not come back. >> c-span: you tell us in your book that your grandfather was raised in a catholic family. >> guest: yes. >> c-span: and there are other references to religion in there. what's happened to you in religion? >> guest: well, i'm not a religious person, but i always say i'm a believer and i'm a true believer.

i think that when you look at the story, you can ask yourself was this coincident or was it faith, and i also ask myself, for example, why did i go to israel? why did i chose so many options to live and study in israel? why do i speak hebrew? i can't give an answer because it always depends how you look at life. if you look at life backwards, then you see no, there is something that someone holds things together. if you look at it into the future, you make it certain without

>> c-span: go back to your friends in israel and you tell the story in the book on how you eventually went to plaszow in poland with jewish kids and told them your story, but what was the reaction of your close friends that you lived with and knew very well in israel when you told them about this story? >> guest: i didn't tell them for long time. as i said, it took me more than two years until i could open up not because i was afraid that they would reject me, you know? i was so afraid what my revelation would trigger within their families because i lived and studied in israel, so i have, you know, a profound understanding somehow of what's going on and about the - a bit about the jewish soul.

as i said, i'm not a religious, but i'm a believer and i think every religion can - has a - is there. and so i have a lot of knowledge about the jewish religion and about what happened in the families of my friends, but i didn't know exactly where they lost, for example, their relatives. so i was scared. maybe some had lost relatives even in plaszow. so how could i get - how would they accept it, not accept me, but accept the fact? so eventually i understood that although i was so scared, i had to share because this is what friendship is about. if you have a friend, you share everything or you try to share the important things in your life, and i told them. and it was heartbreaking because what happened was they were full of empathy and they did not cry for themselves or for their families. they cried for me. >> c-span: i don't know if you want to answer this or not, but you dedicate this book for y, the letter y. who's y? >> guest: there's a reason why i only wrote y. i will not tell it to you now. i will tell it to you afterwards, but i can say it's a family member that is very dear to me.

>> c-span: and you also said you had a period of time where you couldn't stand the smell of beer. why? >> guest: i think it was in connection to my early childhood experiences. the man, my >> c-span: and you also said you had a period of time where you couldn't stand the smell of beer. why? >> guest: i think it was in connection to my early childhood experiences. the man, my mother married after she separated from my biological father, was abusive and he had a problem with alcohol. so yes, this reminded me a lot of what i experienced in my childhood. >> c-span: how much - and i've been on your website, which is jenniferteege.com, i

believe; is that right? and it looks like you are traveling forever in this country and australia and back to europe and back to this country. why are you doing this? >> guest: because people invite me and readers write me and people talk to me and they say it is good that you share this story. share it with a wider audience. and i think the message should be spread and it's not spread all over the world. so hopefully a lot of people will read the book and maybe it triggers the changes something for them. >> c-span: how hard was it to

get this book published in the first place and who did it? and this is an organization called, the experiment in this country, but who was it in germany? >> guest: it's a long story. i have a good publisher in germany, but i - when i first approached a publisher about the story, they didn't want to publish it. >> c-span: why? >> guest: i don't know. maybe one of the reasons was that i had a - one of the major german newspapers with whom i was in contact and they wanted cccccto have an interview - to have an interview -c double interview with my biological mother and i told them that i don't think this is a good idea. >> c-span: we're out of time. the name of this book is, "my grandfather would have shot me," a black woman discovers her families nazi past. jennifer >> guest, thank you for joining us. >> guest: my pleasure.

>> booktv brings you three days of non-fiction books and authors. ...

republican party in the 1892 election. grover cleveland was in office. they saw the country descendent to a deep depression. republicans think the election of 1896 is going to be theirs. he wants to be the nominee but he is not the front runner. >> following afterwards at 11:0v as we attend a book party. >> sunday on in-depth, we'll be be live with your calls, e-mails, and tax from noon until 3:00 p.m. eastern.

book tv this new year's weekend, three days of nonfiction books and authors on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> coming up on c-span twos book tv, a look at science and technology, we'll start with michelle's book, who book, who built that? about american invention. two others discussed their recent works and kevin ashton's book on how to fly force. after that a discussion by evolutionary beth shapiro. >> next,'s conservative blogger