Jennifer Teege
{{short description|German writer (born 1970)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Jennifer Teege
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| birth_name = Jennifer Göth
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|1970|06|29}}
| birth_place = Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
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| occupation = Author
| language = German
| nationality = German
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| alma_mater = Sorbonne University
| period = 2015–present
| genre = memoir
| notableworks = My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past (2015)
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| children = 2
| relatives = Monika Hertwig (mother)
Ruth Irene Kalder (maternal grandmother)
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Jennifer Teege (born 29 June 1970) is a German writer. Her maternal grandfather was Austrian SS Nazi concentration camp commander and war criminal Amon Göth. 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
Teege, who was born Jennifer Göth to a Nigerian father and an Austrian-German mother, grew up in foster care.{{cite news|title=My Nazi grandfather, Amon Göth, would have shot me|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24347798|access-date=17 September 2015|work=BBC|date=3 October 2013}} She was adopted at the age of seven.{{cite web|title=Jennifer Teege Holocaust Remembrance Day Program|url=https://www.sixthandi.org/event/jennifer-teege/|publisher=Sixth & I|accessdate=17 September 2015}} Her grandmother was {{Interlanguage link multi|Ruth Irene Kalder|de||WD=}}, who had a two-year relationship with Amon Göth until the end of the Second World War, and with whom she had a daughter, {{Interlanguage link multi|Monika Hertwig|de}}, who was born in November 1945 and whom he never met.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abGaBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT8|title=My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me|publisher=Workman Publishing|date=7 April 2015| access-date=23 October 2015|first=Jennifer|last= Teege|pages=8–9|isbn=978-1615192540|via=Google Books preview.}} Teege studied at the Sorbonne, and learned Hebrew in Israel where she studied for five years.{{Cite web|title = Jennifer Teege, Granddaughter of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth|url = http://www.dw.com/en/jennifer-teege-granddaughter-of-nazi-war-criminal-amon-g%25C3%25B6th/a-17262860|website =Deutsche Welle|date=1 December 2013|access-date = 17 September 2015}}
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 Göth 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.{{cite news|first=Don|last= Snyder|title=My Nazi Grandfather Would Have Shot Me|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/my-nazi-grandfather-would-have-shot-me-n45366|access-date=17 September 2015|work=NBC News|date=5 March 2014}}{{Cite web|title = How an Author Is Coping with the Discovery That Her Grandpa Was a Nazi|url = https://people.com/books/how-an-author-is-coping-with-discovery-that-her-grandpa-was-schindlers-list-nazi/|first=Sandra Sobieraj |last=Westfall|work=People|date=27 March 2015|access-date = 27 June 2021}} 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.{{Cite web|title = 'My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me': a Nazi in the family|url = http://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/my-grandfather-would-have-shot-me-a-nazi-in-the-family/|newspaper=The Seattle Times|first= Tyrone|last= Beason|date=16 April 2015|access-date = 17 September 2015}}{{Cite news|title = When the skeleton in the family closet is a Nazi|url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-the-skeleton-in-the-family-closet-is-a-nazi/2015/06/05/2a75c228-fe63-11e4-833c-a2de05b6b2a4_story.html|newspaper = The Washington Post|date = 5 June 2015|access-date = 17 September 2015|issn = 0190-8286|language = en|first = Deesha|last = Philyaw}}{{Cite web|title = What's It Like To Be Black And Have A Famous Nazi Grandfather?|url = http://www.wnyc.org/story/whats-it-like-to-be-black-and-have-a-famous-nazi-grandfather/|author=NPR Staff|date=11 February 2015|access-date = 17 September 2015}}{{Cite web|title = Jennifer Teege: My Nazi grandfather would have shot me {{!}} The Sunday Times|url = http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1542371.ece|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150528080153/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1542371.ece|url-status = dead|archive-date = May 28, 2015|website = www.thesundaytimes.co.uk|access-date = 17 September 2015}}{{cite news |title=«Мой дед расстрелял бы меня»: воспоминания внучки коменданта концлагеря Амона Гёта |url=https://www.forbes.ru/forbeslife/489934-moj-ded-rasstrelal-by-mena-vospominania-vnucki-komendanta-konclagera-amona-geta |work=Forbes.ru |date=28 May 2023}}
Works
- Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon. Mein Großvater hätte mich erschossen. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2013, {{ISBN|978-3-498-06493-8}}.
- English edition: {{cite book|translator=Carolin Sommer|title=My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wpK8BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP2|date=15 April 2015|publisher=Workman Publishing Company|isbn=978-1-61519-253-3|pages=2– }}
Holy Holocaust
In 2021, Noa Berman-Herzberg, Teege's Israeli friend and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, partnered with Osi Wald to direct a locally animated autobiographical short film titled Holy Holocaust. Berman-Herzberg narrates the film, while Teege is voiced by German-Israeli actress Gabriela Börschmann.
In Holy Holocaust, Berman-Herzberg narrates of her friendship with Teege and how it was affected by the latter being Göth'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.
In 2022, The New Yorker acquired the streaming rights to Holy Holocaust and uploaded it on its official website and YouTube channel.{{Cite web|last=Aizenman|first=Hannah|date=November 9, 2022|title = An Ancestor's Atrocities Challenge a Friendship in Holy Holocaust|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/an-ancestors-atrocities-challenge-a-friendship-in-holy-holocaust|publisher=The New Yorker}}
See also
- Afro-Germans, the ethnic group which Teege is a part of
- Inheritance (2006 film), a PBS documentary about {{Interlanguage link multi|Monika Hertwig|de}}, Teege's mother
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [http://kalamu.com/neogriot/2013/09/30/interview-jennifer-teege-my-grandfather-would-have-shot-me/ Neo-Griot interview with Jennifer Teege, author of ‘My grandfather would have shot me’.]
- [http://www.c-span.org/video/?327547-1/qa-jennifer-teege Q&A with Jennifer Teege (August 12, 2015), Jennifer Teege talked about her book.]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIcb_Uh3ciY Jennifer Teege, granddaughter of a Nazi war criminal], interview at Deutsche Welle English (video, 29 mins)
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2ojGXNJSo Holy Holocaust], a 2021 Israeli animated short film about Noa Berman-Herzberg and Jennifer Teege's friendship
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Category:German people of Austrian descent
Category:German people of Nigerian descent
Category:German expatriates in France