brian: you wrote, "i am the granddaughter of a mass murderer." how hard is that? jennifer: to find out was difficult, but now to live with it it is ok. a lot of time has passed and i came to terms with the fact. today i think that, yes, it is a big responsibility, but it is not a burden anymore. brian: your book, called "my grandfather would have shot me," has a bunch of characters in your life and i want to put it on the screen, the chart that shows your family, and have you briefly explain. you can see up on the top is your grandfather on the right. amon goeth, who is he? jennifer: he is known to millions of people because he was depicted in the movie "schindler's list." but, he was not a movie character. 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 was hanged in 1946, very close to the concentration camp. brian: let me go back to that chart and show your grandmother. ruth irene kalder. jennifer: my grandmother was a woman who worked for him. she was smitten by my biological grandfather from the very beginning and they lived together, even after the war. my grandmother, she still loves him very much. she took his name, although they have not been married. she was more, i would say, she was sort of his wife. host: you mentioned plaszow, what is that?

jennifer: it is a concentration camp run by my grandfather, and my grandmother and grandfather stayed there for a period of, i think, several years, together. brian: back to the chart, right below that is woman whose name is monika hertwig. who is she? jennifer: monika is my biological mother. that is the name she took when she was married, but she was born as monika goeth. she is the daughter of them. brian: did you know her? jennifer: yes. she was my biological mother. she gave me up for adoption, but we were in contact for the first years of my life. she gave me to an orphanage when i was four weeks old, but only at seven years old we lost contact because i was adopted by

a white german family. brian: have you seen her in the last seven years? jennifer: i did. brian: where does she live? jennifer: in germany. brian: where was she born? jennifer: she was born in germany. brian: let's go back to the chart, off to the side -- we don't have a name for this. your biological father. he was nigerian. jennifer: yes. brian: where is he? jennifer: he is also living in germany. he was a student when he came to germany. i will talk about it more later on when we talk about the family structure. 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. today he is living in germany. he is married to a teacher. so they have more kids. i have a bunch of half-siblings. brian: when was the first time you met your biological father? jennifer: in my mid-20's. i was never really interested, maybe because i grew up with the knowledge of who my biological mother and grandmother were. but my father, i only knew his name because it was on my birth certificate. somehow, maybe because i never met him as a child, i wasn't interested in getting to know him. only when i was 20-years-old, and i started to analyze it. i suffered depression for a while and i became interested in getting to know more about the paternal side of my biological family. then, in my mid-20's, we met each other briefly. brian: the last name on the

chart, and i know it is not the actual name, but it is your adopted parents. when were you adopted and how long did you live with them? jennifer: as i said, i came to the orphanage when i was very small. i stayed in the orphanage until i was three-years-old. when i was three-years-old, i had to leave the orphanage. i tried to find foster families for the kids in the orphanage. 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. this was also the moment when i cut with my biological mother, ties with my biological mother were cut. my -- it is a bit complicated, but my parents separated before

i was born, and my mother married a man who was abusive. she was in an abusive relationship. and one of the reasons why my adoptive parents decided to cut ties, is that it was simply not a safe and good environment. the circumstances were really difficult. so they wanted me to have a quiet and healthy childhood. this was the reason why they cut ties. brian: you are married. when did you get married? jennifer: it is always a bit embarrassing because i am always bad with numbers. i think 10 years ago. but we have been together much longer. 14 years, i think. brian: he is german? jennifer: yes. brian: where did you meet him? jennifer: i met him in germany. through my work. he was my boss. classical story. we fell in love and today we

beautiful children. brian: how old are they? jennifer: i cannot tell you the exact age because i try not to give too much information, for security reasons, and i want them to stay incognito. so when they are older, they can decide for themselves if they want to share their story. i can tell you they are at the beginning of high school. i do not know what grade it is here in the u.s. brian: you live where? jennifer: in germany, in hamburg. but i travel a lot so i would say i live all over the world. brian: let me show you video from 2006, it is a documentary done by james moll, it is called "behind the scenes of inheritance." we will find out how he did this documentary. [video clip]

>> in 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. we needed the rights to the photograph and they were owned by monika, his daughter. i called her to ask for the rights to use the photograph. we talked for quite a while, and suddenly she said, you know, i am not my father. immediately i thought, i want to interview this woman. in "schindler's list," ralph fiennes portrayed amon goeth. there are those scenes where he is standing, overlooking the camp, shooting his rifle at the prisoners of the camp. that is monika's father. 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. brian: why did you write a book about this? jennifer: it was a decision i did not make immediately after i found out who my biological grandfather was. it was something i decided over a long period. when i understood more i thought what happened to me was such an extraordinary story that it needed to be shared. this was one of the main reasons i decided to write it down. there was another reason. i came across a quote by batina goering. the grand-niece of goering, the commander of the german air

force during the nazi era. she and her brother decided to sterilize themselves. when i read this, i thought it was so utterly wrong. i was stunned. i thought it was important to set a different and positive example. because you, yourself, decide who you want to be. you know? it is not something that is connected to genes. so, this is why i wanted to write this book. brian: you published this yourself in 2013, it was named "amon."

in the united states it is named "my grandfather would have shot me." why did you change the name? jennifer: the title was "amon," but the subtitle was always "my grandfather would have shot me." i think for the u.s. market, the name amon is not so well known. i preferred "amon," because it is more like literature. and the book is a nonfiction book, but for me it is more like -- the reason why i decided in germany to publish it under "amon," is because the name as so striking. because, in our family, name is play a very important role. when you notice that the name of my mother is monika, and the nickname of my biological grandfather was monique. there are some other aspects. for example, the name is a jewish name. also the name of my grandmother. a biblical name. and, there is another point because i have a half-sister.

and she gave the name amon, also a jewish name, but the combination of two jewish names. it shows that the family history is transmitted into the next generation. all of these reasons is so striking, that i thought "amon" is the right title. when you want to sell a book, you have to look at the market. for me it is important to spread the message. if the message is spread with this title, i am fine with it. the title is also interesting because the new title, "my grandfather would have shot me" -- because, when you look at me, you see the color of my skin. i am black. and the first thing, the title, i you think it is because i look so differently. but more importantly it is inside.

you see that my character is very different. this is why the new title is a good decision. brian: another thing that you tell us is that you are six feet tall. jennifer: and i have high heels. [laughter] brian: how does that impact you, when you stick out in a crowd? jennifer: i always stick out. i grew up in a neighborhood in germany where i was the only black child. for me, being someone not average is so normal. when i walk in the street, i don't notice people looking at me. it is funny because my husband is also very tall, but only when i am surrounded, for example, in asia, where the people are very small, it is very intense that people look at us. normally, now, i'm so used to it.

brian: going back to your grandfather, amon goeth. he died at age 37. if we were to follow him around, and watch the awful things that he did, what would we see? ms. teege: i don't know -- i don't understand. brian: i said, if we were to follow him around when he was alive, as the head of this concentration camp and he did so many bad things, what would we see that he did? shooting people and dogs and all that. jennifer: we would see a tremendously cruel person. a person who was, yes-- i mean, he was capable -- he had two dogs, he called them ralph and rolph. he trained them to tear people apart. i think this sums it up very good. there was a pleasure that he felt when he killed people. this is something, when you are normal, if you don't have this

aspect in your personality, it is very difficult to grasp. i remember in the very beginning, when i discovered to who my biological grandfather was, this aspect of his personality, but cruelty, was one of the fact there's that was most difficult for me to come to terms with. because it is something that is so far from what you can imagine how people can be. now, maybe when we have the political situation of today and thinking about isis, people who slaughter other people, it somehow gets normal. but this is not normal. this is something that you can't -- you can't treat people like this. it is something personal within yourself that should be --

humanity, it is an aspect. that when you look at the nazi era and my grandfather got lost. brian: when he was hanged after the war in 1946, who hanged him? jennifer: he was hanged by the polish government. he was extradited to poland by with the commandant of auschwitz. it was an interesting detail, what i read, when they arrived in poland, they wanted to stone him. you would imagine they would want to stone rudolf hess, because he was more known, but because of his cruelty, the way that he, himself, killed people. the masses wanted to stone him.

brian: let me show some video. because in the end, when he was hanged, it was strange to see. and here is the end of your grandfather, when he was put to death. [video clip] [no audio] brian: we are not going to show the last part where he was actually hanged. i'm sure you have seen that before. what was your reaction?

jennifer: i saw the execution hours after i discovered the biography of 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. i remember sitting in front of the tv. i did not know whether to cry or laugh, not whether to cry because i was sad, but this was something that was not real. interestingly, i read that today -- i don't know, maybe it is something that was just invented. but historians tried to figure out whether this was really my grandfather. some say that it was ludwig fischer, maybe it is the hair that is not right, but i always thought it was my biological grandfather.

someone asked me if i thought he deserved to be hanged, it is a difficult question. he did so much evil that he needed a punishment. i am against the death penalty. i am a person who believes that the death penalty is something that you have to be very careful, because if you make a mistake, you cannot change it. i think my grandfather deserved the highest punishment that you can get, yes. brian: how many people died in the concentration camp around where plaszow, poland is? jennifer: i don't know. brian: in your book you talk about auschwitz, one million people? jennifer: thousands. if you look at the trial of my grandfather, he was put on trial for thousands of jews. he was also involved in the

eviction of the ghetto in krakow. i don't go how to sum it up. the number is not relevant because it is too many. it is thousands. but, i cannot give you an exact number. i do not know. brian: what did you discover about why they hated jews so much? jennifer: you mean the nazis? brian: yes. what was the reason? jennifer: it is a difficult question. i think, when you look at the nazi era, it was -- there was an interesting experiment here done after the war. they wanted to find out why people treat other people the way they treated them in the nazi era.

i think it was not only the jews i think there were others who were killed. people who did not somehow have the -- the ideology, the nazi ideology, it was also the gypsies. but especially the jews. i think -- the system is set so people follow the authority. there are a lot of people who did not reflect. they were just following the authority. for example, if you look at my grandmother, my grandmother must have been an anti-semite. she lived with my grandfather and supported the system. after the war, i told you my parents met in the household of my grandmother. my grandmother somehow adopted a different point of view. so it is so weird. i cannot give you an answer why this happened. brian: james moll who did the documentary "inheritance."

i know that you watched that. it was run on pbs, and the bbc. here is your mother talking about her father, which is your grandfather. [video clip] >> i asked my grandmother, grandmother, do i have a father, too? she said, monika, every child has a father. i asked, where is my father? she said, like millions of men he died for his country. he is dead. shot down. i believed her. i didn't know why i shouldn't believe her. for me, he was everything. he was a great man, a soldier. everybody told me, if my father had been alive, he was such a nice man and would do everything

for me. brian: what is your mom like? jennifer: my mom is a difficult person. she is 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 difficult for her to separate. if you look at her appearance, the photos that we see now, she looks a bit happier than the other pictures, in the way that i somehow perceive her. but she has been -- you see, she walks a bit like the weight is on her shoulders. she cannot somehow leave the past behind. i think because it is the father, and the identification with parents for everyone, looking at psychology, is so strong that she could never somehow find her own life.

she is haunted by the past until today. this is typical for the second generation. there is another famous example, nicolas frank, the son of hans frank, the deputy of hitler. in occupied poland. he has a photo of his father, who was hanged, with a broken neck in his wallet. he looks at it, he says, every day. so they go on and they cannot leave the past behind. they live with it. they feel guilty very often. yes, this is something i think is a problem for the second generation. i also think it is a bit of a problem for my mother. brian: there are a lot of examples of what you talk about here. there are examples on video of kathrine himmler, she was heinrich himmler's great niece.

let's watch the video of what she has to say about the relationship. [video clip] >> [speaking foreign language]

brian: have you run into the same thing where people don't like the name goeth, they just want it to go away? jennifer: not for me. i did not have a relationship with that name, it was just a random name. when i found out who my mother was, this was the first time i understood this was the name connected to amon goeth of the nazi party. when i watch the video, i notice something. katrin himmler is married to a jewish guy today. those are the sentiments of perpetrators who knew from the very beginning about their family past. for me it is very different. i found out by coincidence. i had a life before and a strong identity before. so i never only identified myself by being goeth, the granddaughter of amon goeth.

i identify myself by being the name jennifer. i was always identified as jennifer. it was far easier for me in the long run to find my own identity. for all these people that grow up with other difficult heritage, it was almost impossible to leave the past behind. if i decide to leave it behind, it does not mean that i forget. you know? but, i want to set a different example, insofar, that if you look back, it doesn't help anyone. the last word of my book is "hope." because i think that you have to look forward. in my personal example, i have

two children. i never had a real mother myself, so when i was so depressed, i could not be a good mother to them. this is one of the reasons i decided, no, i have to go in a different direction. and what i did was, i traveled to krakow. in krakow, the former concentration camp does not exist anymore. what you have today is only a statue or 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 it would be a good thing to lay flowers. to have a symbolic exit somehow. to somehow go on with my life, but not to forget. to honor the victims but to go on and live in the future, to try to see what we can do. to somehow turn it around. you know, to make something positive out of it. brian: you tell us in the book you were born in 1975. if i do the math right, you are

45-years-old. jennifer: yes. brian: when did you find out that amon goeth was your grandfather? jennifer: i was 38-years-old. brian: how did it happen? jennifer: on a sunny day in august. brian: what city? jennifer: hamburg. still my hometown. it was a regular and ordinary day. i did not suspect anything. in the morning i got up, my kids were much younger. i drove them to preschool. i was in the library, it is a huge library with thousands of books. i was there for maybe half an hour, i was in the psychology department. that is interesting, because it was not the history department. i saw a small book with a red cover that grabbed my attention. i could just read the spine, and

there was the title -- "i have to love my father, don't i?" the name of the author was a journalist. i looked at the cover quickly, and there was a small photograph of a woman, a portrait, and there was the subtitle and it said -- "the life story of monika goeth, daughter of the commander of the krakow-plaszow concentration camp, amon goeth, of schindler's list." i started to read it slowly, but faster and faster. the book contained text but also photographs and there was one that reminded me of my mother. a woman with dark hair, and another picture, this was the

picture of a woman in a flower dress. and, i had one single picture of my grandmother, for all these years that i kept. the woman in the photo had the exact same dress. under the photo was a caption that said "ruth irene" so i continued to skim the book and in the end there was biographical details. the name of the woman, the birthdate and where she was born. at this moment i understood that it was not a regular book in my hands. brian: let's go back to the chart we have of how everyone is connected. the picture to the right, amon goeth, who is your grandfather. then ruth irene kalder, who was never married to him but took his name after he was killed by the polish people.

she committed suicide in 1983, how did you know her? when did you know her? jennifer: i knew her as a child. she and my mother would visit me in the orphanage or i would visit them at the house. not often, sporadically. but i had seen her as a child. this is how i knew her. i only had good, fond memories of her. due to the fact my mother was in an abusive relationship, as a child, i did not only like her but she also provided me with safety. maybe this strengthened the 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 i woman capable of living outside a concentration camp with a man as sadistic as amon goeth, this was a major problem for me. it plunged me into a crisis

because i could not bring these two aspects of her personality together. brian: why did she commit suicide? jennifer: two reasons. one reason is that she was really sick. she had a lung disease and she knew that she would die quite soon. but, what might have triggered her death, there was a documentary done by a british journalist, and they interviewed my grandmother. the documentary was done for the movie "schindler's list." some people from the past, like my grandmother, but also the wife of oskar schindler, they interviewed. they wanted to collect the voices and statements. john blair interviewed my grandmother.

after he left the apartment, my grandmother took an overdose of sleeping pills and killed herself. she left a suicide note. when i found out, i so desperately wanted to get a transcript of the interview that the journalist did, because in the suicide note she said nothing about the war or the past. i thought, i really hope that at the very end there was some kind of regret, that she understood what she did and what was happening. but no, she didn't. not one word. she was really unrepentant. unrepentant until the end. brian: one of the housekeepers for your grandfather was helen jonas-rosenzweig. we have some video of her talking about your grandmother. [video clip]

>> she was very neutral. she didn't want to get mixed up in anything. to me, she was one who lived for the luxury. she beautified herself all day. she wanted us to bring her egg white. she would come down and taste the food that we cooked. she had the music on. she didn't want to hear anything. maybe, maybe, she would feel, but one time i recall her saying, with her head down, if i could, i would send you home. but i can't.

brian: you tell us in the book that helen jonas-rosenzweig lives in florida, and is married. have you talked to her? jennifer: not yet. but i spoke to her daughter. i had a reading event and she was in the audience. i did not know. i never contacted helen because i didn't want to interfere with my mother. i thought, you know, maybe she did not feel comfortable with this. i always wanted to meet her, 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 schedule that she might attend. it is 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 when you have a car -- you know, accident, and you just drive by and you don't help, this is a criminal act. brian: she, helen rosenzweig, plays a role in the book. tell us about her role with your grandfather. jennifer: she was a maid and she lived in the house. in the movie "inheritance" it shows an encounter between my mother and helen. there is a scene where she is standing in the house. and she had to work for my grandfather and she was in constant fear because every day could have been the last day of her life. the relationship she had was that she was the servant and had to obey the rules. brian: there was another woman, who was also the housekeeper. how cruel was he to them?

jennifer: both lived in the house. brian: both jewish? jennifer: they were both jewish, yes. in the movie, "schindler's list," there is a scene that she somehow approached one of the -- that he somehow approached one of the housekeepers in an intimate way. some say this is more fiction than reality. i don't know. i think he did not have a relationship because he was not capable of seeing them as a true human being. he saw them as people that he could treat the way he wanted to do so, and this was also the testimony that helen gave. that she was treated very badly. by both by my grandmother, by closing her eyes, and my biological grandfather who would beat her down the stairs. and, i mean, to live in constant fear, this is something you cannot imagine. this is something so cruel, even

if you don't shoot someone. the circumstances were beyond what you can imagine. brian: when did you first see "schindler's list"? jennifer: i saw the movie in israel, ironically. because i have a special special bond with jewish people, without knowing my family past. when i was in my 20's i moved to israel and i lived there for a couple years. i speak fluent hebrew. i studied middle eastern politics and history in israel. so, i saw the movie. i had a shared flat and apartment with a roommate. i saw the movie in israel. i thought it was very moving. brian: there is a tiny excerpt here of 30 seconds of ralph fiennes playing amon goeth in

the movie. here is the famous shot from the balcony with a machine gun in his hand. [video clip] [gunfire] [screams] [shouting] brian: has your mother watched this? jennifer: i'm sure that she watched it a couple times. the first time that she saw the movie, i read, she knew who her

father was always, but she thought he was someone -- she did not know what he was doing. then she got more and more information. first, when she was 11-years-old, and later when she got information by a jewish inmate from the plaszow concentration camp. but seeing the movie for the first time plunged her into an enormous crisis. it is different when you read something or hear something. people say the movie is very close to reality. for the first time, she really realized what kind of person he was. brian: let's go back to the chart, to keep track of all the people. we talked about your grandfather, your grandmother, your mother and your father who was a nigerian. what is his reaction to the book?

jennifer: i shared with him that i wrote a book a couple weeks before the book came out. as i said, we had not been in contact for a long time. i started with him in my mid-20's and then a period where we had no contact. then we reconnected. because -- for me, it was so important that he would not find out by coincidence. i would tell him that i wrote a book, and he does not find out by himself. we did not talk a lot about the past because this time with my father, i did not want to make the same mistakes as i did with my mother. i really want to concentrate our relationship on the present. i want to get to know my father and his side, the nigerian side. i wanted to know more about how he grew up. so it is not something we constantly talk about. i think that, yes, he thinks

about it, and he is a very educated man. but, it is not something that is a major part of our relationship. brian: how many times have you told the story? any idea? jennifer: now, very often. i am in the public and i talk about the book and my story. but, it is so different from the first years, i was unable to speak about it. now i think it is easy. it is because such a long time has passed. you have to know that, after i found out about the secret, the toxic family secret, for the first half year, i did not talk to anyone. i spoke to my husband and therapist. after half a year, i spoke to my adoptive parents. after 1.5 years, i spoke to my biological mother. after more than two years, i shared the secret with my jewish

friends. now seven years have passed. so, until the book was published, until the first time in the media, there were 10 or 12 people who i ever spoke to about it. brian: what was the reception in germany? jennifer: the book was received very well. when i made the decision to go public, i knew that i could not go back. i tried to share everything. there are a lot of different aspects that i keep private. for example, the age of my children and things 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, and find themselves in the book, the reception was very good. in germany, the subject or the topic of nazi-ism, is something that is such a part of german identity. in school it is mandatory. we are educated about the holocaust, even by the education system now i was approached because they want to use the book in school. i think this is wonderful. the could not be a better result. [laughter] brian: your husband you name as getz. you name your children as claudius and linus. are those the real names? jennifer: no. brian: why are you worried about the real names? jennifer: when i first traveled, especially from the white part, i did not know what would happen. in germany we have a problem with neo-nazis. i just, you know, i did not want

to take any risk. brian: you tell us several times in the book that you had a nervous breakdown, or depression. i hate these questions, but what does it feel like to have depression? can you describe it? jennifer: i will try to. i turn the question back, did you, yourself, ever feel like you have a bad day? yes, probably. brian: no, every day is perfect. [laughter] i know what you are saying. jennifer: you feel like there is something wrong, but depression is not a day or a week. it can last a month. i described it once with a cloud. the cloud comes, and it will not disappear. it is a dark cloud. somehow you are not able to function, you are not able to

get up. in my case, i wanted to sleep so badly but depression can also have very different symptoms. depression often leads to addiction, to drug abuse or things like this. so, i suffered depression, not only because of the toxic family, but because of the deprivation. when you are given up in such an early age this is difficult to overcome. but today i have overcome the depression and i think it is due to the fact that the toxic power of the family secret has been lifted. when there is something that you know it is there, is so dangerous because it will ultimately lead to some depressive element because you cannot find your true 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 true self, to have a true feeling of your identity is crucial for everyone. brian: when was the last time you were depressed? jennifer: depressed? a few years ago. i had a bad day a couple weeks ago. brian: what year did you have your nervous breakdown? jennifer: the nervous breakdown, i was diagnosed as posttraumatic syndrome after i found the book. several years ago. then i had a period where i had to recover. today i would say that i don't suffer depression anymore, because i am not afraid that a dark cloud would come back. because there is nothing unsolved. i compared it once with a puzzle.

my problem, and again i want to speak more general. if you have in your life a lot of pieces, like a puzzle. you need framework where you can put it. because otherwise, you are not stable. today, i have the frame and when you can put in the pieces you are not afraid that everything breaks down. it is not like a house built on sand. you know? you take out one brick and everything falls to pieces. no, if you have a proper structure or foundation, you have a good chance the depression will not come back. brian: you tell us in your book that your grandfather was raised in a catholic family, and there are other references to religion. what has happened to you and religion? jennifer: i am not a religious person, but i always say i am a believer and a true believer. i think when you look at the story, you can ask yourself, was this coincidence or fate?

i ask myself, why did i go to israel? why did i choose, from so many options, to live in israel, why do i speak hebrew? i cannot give an answer, because it always depends how you look at life. if you look at life backward, you will see there is something that holds things together. if you look into the future, you make decisions without knowing. i think there is a higher power that holds everything together, but -- i am a believer, but not a religious person. one thing, with religion, the problem is if you are too extremist, then sometimes religion can divide people. this is something that i think is a danger for our society today.

i mean, we see it. brian: what about your mother and grandmother? were they religious? jennifer: i think both, no. they were not. brian: your grandfather, i assume. jennifer: he grew up in a catholic household, but it was not a household where they practiced religion on a daily basis. brian: in 1990, you were in paris for a year where you met jewish friends, and in 1991 you went to israel. did you graduate from the university of tel aviv? in what subject? jennifer: in hebrew it is [speaking hebrew]. brian: [chuckling] that is interesting. what is it in english? jennifer: a history of african-american history. i have been to africa several

times. at nigeria. my father's family comes from the delta, even the embassy said it is maybe not such a good idea to travel there. i will go when it is more quiet, but i have been to tanzania, south africa and a couple places. brian: back to your friends in israel, you tell the story of how you eventually went to plaszow, poland, and with jewish kids and told them your story. what was the reaction of close friends that you knew very well? jennifer: i did not tell them for a long time. as i said, it took me more than two years before i could open up. not because i was afraid that they would reject me. i was so afraid what my revelation would trigger within their families. i lived and studied in israel, so i have a profound understanding somehow of what is going on, and a bit about the jewish soul.

i am not a religious person, but i am a believer. so, i have a lot of knowledge about the jewish religion and about what happened in the families of my friends. i did not know exactly where they lost relatives. so i was scared. maybe some had lost relatives even in plaszow. so, how would they accept it? not me, but accept the fact? eventually, i understood that although i was scared, i had to share. 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. i told them. it was heartbreaking, because what happened was they were full of empathy, and they did not cry for themselves or for their family, they cried for me.

brian: i don't know if you want to answer this, but you dedicate this book for the letter "y." who is "y"? jennifer: there is a reason why i only wrote "y." i will not tell it to you now, i will tell it to you afterward, but i can say that it is a family member that is very dear to me. brian: you also said, you had a period of time when you could not stand the smell of beer. why? jennifer: i think it was in connection to my early childhood experiences. my mother was married to a man after she separated from my biological father who was abusive and had a problem with alcohol. so, yes, this reminded me of my childhood. brian: i have been on your website, jenniferteege.com, it

looks like you're traveling forever in this country and australia and back to europe and back to this country. why are you doing this? jennifer: people invite me and readers write me, and people talk to me and say it is good that you share the story. share it with a wider audience. and i think the message should be spread and is not spread all over the world. hopefully a lot of people will read the book, and maybe it triggers a change or something for them. brian: how hard was it to get this book published in the first place? who did it and this is an organization called the experiment in this country. jennifer: it is a long story. when i first approached a publisher about the story, they did not want to publish it. brian: why? jennifer: i don't know. maybe one of the reasons was

that i had one of the major german newspapers, with whom i was in contact, and they wanted to have a double interview with my biological mother and i told him i did not think this was a good idea. brian: we are out of time. the name of this book is "my grandfather would have shot me." a black woman discovers her family's nazi past. jennifer teege, thank you for joining us. jennifer: my pleasure. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: for free transcripts, or to give us your comment about this program, visit us at q-and-a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts.

>> if you enjoyed this week's "q&a" interview with jennifer teege, here are some other programs you might like. andrew nagorksi talking about his book, "hitlerland, antony beevor on his historical narrative, "the second world war, and anne applebaum talking about her book. you can browse the entire library at c-span.org. ♪ senator bernie sanders speaks

at liberty university. live at 2:00 p.m., a discussion on iran's future role in the middle east. >> tonight, on "the communicators," jerry epstein will discuss the broadcast spectrum auction that will allow wireless companies to build -- space. >>airwave we are not taking spectrum from broadcasters. it is a voluntary auction. be acasters continue to valuable service. congress passed an act where broadcasters would be able to relinquish their spectrum rights in return for a share of the proceeds of the forward auction. congress