. >> have the privilege of welcoming poet and historian rita gabis today to discuss her book "a guest at the shooter's banquet: my grandfather's ss patch, my jewish family, a search for the trouble truth" she's share story as the -- her mission to unravel the truth about their grandfather from 1941 to 1943 she discovered was a chief of security police under the gestapo in a light wayneon town when jews were murdered in 1941. she is a author of two books of post triand co-author of a book on the craft of writing.

please help me welcome rita gabis. >> thank you for that beautiful introduction. i just want to say that i love arthur miller. one of the first playwrights i ever read, so thrilled to hear about the upcoming production. going to take a quick sip of water. i'm delighted to be speaking here at the west port public library, has a wonderful authors program. i want to thank all of you for coming, and also to think c-span for being here as well to cover this event. i'm just going to begin by reiterating what has already been said, i come from a blended family. my mother is first generation lithuanian catholic, and my father who passed away a little over ten years ago, was a russian jewish descent. i'm going to tell you a bit about my book, and because my book contains upwards of 70 images, i'm going to share a few photographs with you as i talk about my book. for me as a writer, the gathering of images and archival material that ended up in pectoral form in my book was a way of anchoring myself to a long six-year journey that involved many trips to eastern europe to isr

and then at 11, rita gabis reports on her family history including her grandfather's position in the gestapo. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> and now joining us on booktv, tracy k. smith. she's a pulitzer prize winner, and she's written a memoir called "ordinary be life." -- ordinary life. professor smith, who was cath? >> ah, cathy is my mother. and in the course of thinking about this book, i realized that that person that i grew up knowing was so many different people. that's probably such an obvious statement. but one of my main wishes in wanting to write about my mother was to explore the impact of her death on my life, explore our relationship, think about the different versions of myself that i was with and without her. i also had the really strong wish to bring her to life for my children who were born after she was gone. it just struck me as so heartbreaking when i was pregnant with my daughter who's now 5 that she would never know person. and one night i was lying in bed, and my husband said why don't you write a book about your parents? why don't you write