⇒ PDF Gratis The Pendulum A Granddaughter Search for Her Family Forbidden Nazi Past Julie Lindahl 9781538111932 Books

The Pendulum A Granddaughter Search for Her Family Forbidden Nazi Past Julie Lindahl 9781538111932 Books

Download As PDF : The Pendulum A Granddaughter Search for Her Family Forbidden Nazi Past Julie Lindahl 9781538111932 Books

The Pendulum A Granddaughter Search for Her Family Forbidden Nazi Past Julie Lindahl 9781538111932 Books

Born in Brazil to a mother who was born in German-occupied Poland, Julie Lindahl had been lied to throughout her young life.  She was aware that her grandmother, now living her last years in Germany, held some odd ideas, but there seemed little to contradict the story that her family had been farmers, first in western Poland, after the war in northern Germany, and finally in Brazil.  

After college at Wellesley, Julie spent a year at Oxford and then had a Fulbright in Germany, and her conversations with her grandmother became more troubling.  Some time afterward, a deep depression struck.  Believing that her family's web of lies and denials were at the root of her depression, her husband encouraged her to research her family's history in the German Federal Archives in Berlin.  The documents revealed that her grandfather had joined the Nazi party even before 1933.  Both her maternal grandparents were SS members and had applied for membership as a couple.  Far from being a simple farmer in Poland, her grandfather had been part of the brutal, even murderous land grab and occupation in the name of “Lebensraum.”  

Driven to find out the whole truth, Julie travelled to Poland and interviewed people, by then in their 70s and 80s, who remembered "Opa"'s monstrous brutality.  Further research in the province of Schleswig-Holstein pointed to her grandfather's association with unrepentant Nazis after the war.  Finally, she travelled to Brazil, hoping to uncover the rest of the story and the last years of her grandfather's life.  There she discovered both the farm her grandfather had built, deep in the jungle where he would never be discovered, and an uncle whose existence the family had concealed for over 40 years.  She learned more about how the networks of former Nazis renewed themselves in the red soil of the Amazon basin.  But if she had hoped to find any recognition of the crimes that had gone unpunished, or of Brazilian society's role in protecting the criminals, she was disappointed. It was as though all traces of their crimes had been obliterated. Her grandfather's property had been placed in his Brazilian lawyer's name and then disappeared.  

Lindahl has found the confrontation with her family's past liberating and transformative.  Like Walter Benjamin, she questions the value of closure; "Was this closure?  I understood why many had wished it for me, but still wondered what it was.  Maybe a sort of emotional landing in which I could get on with the everyday and return to "normality?"  Yet I was still floating without gravity in a universe of question marks, with a heart pounding with both the agony of knowledge and the love of those I had met along the way."  Instead of considering her project of coming to terms with her family's past closed, she has channeled that energy into creating a nonprofit organization, "Stories for Children," which seeks to bring about social transformation.  

Having travelled extensively for my own research, I could appreciate the intellectual and spiritual journey Julie’s quest involved, as well as the geographical one.  But her story, unlike mine, is just gripping.  In the right hands, this could translate into a brilliant film.


Tags : The Pendulum: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Forbidden Nazi Past [Julie Lindahl] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <span>This powerful memoir traces Brazilian-born American Julie Lindahl’s journey to uncover her grandparents’ roles in the Third Reich as she is driven to understand how and why they became members of Hitler’s elite,Julie Lindahl,The Pendulum: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Forbidden Nazi Past,Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,1538111934,Grandchildren of war criminals - Germany,Grandchildren of war criminals;Germany;Biography.,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Atrocities,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945);Atrocities.,Lindahl, Julie Catterson,Lindahl, Julie Catterson - Family,Women - Sweden,Women;Sweden;Biography.,Biography & AutobiographyGeneral,Democracy,Difficult Conversations,Family Secrets,GENERAL,General Adult,HISTORY Holocaust,History,HistoryEurope - General,HistoryLatin America - General,HistoryWorld,History: Europe General,History: Holocaust,History: Latin America General,History; Memoir; Nazi; Democracy; Difficult Conversations; Family Secrets; Holocaust; Human Rights; Intergenerational Trauma; Latin American History,Holocaust,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Atrocities,Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945);Atrocities.,Human Rights,Intergenerational Trauma,JEWISH HOLOCAUST,Latin American History,Lindahl, Julie Catterson,Lindahl, Julie Catterson - Family,Memoir,Nazi,Non-Fiction,Political ScienceHuman Rights,Political Science: Human Rights,Sweden,United States,Western Europe,Women - Sweden,Women's Studies,Women;Sweden;Biography.,Biography & AutobiographyGeneral,HISTORY Holocaust,HistoryEurope - General,HistoryLatin America - General,History: Europe General,History: Holocaust,History: Latin America General,Political ScienceHuman Rights,Political Science: Human Rights

The Pendulum A Granddaughter Search for Her Family Forbidden Nazi Past Julie Lindahl 9781538111932 Books Reviews

While a weighty subject matter, the author is engaging in describing her journey and balances the history we know with personal insights. The perspective is unique yet relatable at the same time. Relevant topic and hopeful tone for today's society. Highly recommend!
This book is an account of a meticulous investigation of the author’s own family past. With a gut wrenching honesty, Ms Lindahl exposes her own family as the WWII criminals and... victims. Who is what? One must read this book, discuss it, promote it as an educational text to study history and ethics.
The Pendulum is an engrossing read. Lindahl embarked on an exhaustive six year journey to uncover the truth about her family's past. She uncovers secrets pertaining to her grandparents and discovers a long lost uncle living on another continent. I couldn't put this book down, it was riveting reading. Many things the author uncovered were very hard to learn and I applaud her determination to pursue her research, no matter how difficult. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. I really liked the cover as well.
I give The Pendulum by Julie Lindahl 5 stars. I found this book to be compelling, riveting, and difficult to put down. The concept of Nazis having lives and families and descendants isn’t one that crosses my mind often. I also didn’t realize the pain and guilt that their children and grandchildren could carry. It broke my heart for Julie and her family to read about all the pain and turmoil they experienced because of the evil her grandfather participated in. I was rooting for Julie in her search and was inspired by her unrelenting bravery. The book was very well written and I recommend this to anyone who has in interest in world history.
What happens when a generation of people refuses to accept the guilt and consequences for their horrific actions; the next generation, in a mix of trauma and terror, refuses to acknowledge it; and the generation after that is left with instinctual shame fueled by questions they are not allowed to ask? Julie Lindahl tackles exactly that in this chronicle of her multi-year journey across continents and through decades of history to uncover the truth about her German family that wound up in the remote interior of Brazil. She does a wonderful job of conveying the various emotions she had throughout the journey; what's less well-explained is what some of the terms, organizations and locations mean and what their significance was during the Third Reich. I felt like I needed to really brush up on details of that time in history in order to understand some of this book, which kind of took me out of it a bit. Still, this was a really interesting and thought-provoking read.
Julie grew up believing she’d done something wrong. She finally learned her grandparents were Nazi SS during the war. They remained unrepentant, and cast long shadows of bitterness over their children and grandchildren.
Her grandfather was a member of the mounted SS, and enjoyed beating Poles. Her grandmother believed the Poles to be dirty and disorganized, and should have been grateful to the Germans for bringing order. To the end of her life, she believed the Holocaust to be a lie; people didn’t have a bad time in the labor camps. It was just Jewish propaganda. The SS men were the best sort.
Nature weeds out the weak and allows only the best and strongest to survive. That’s what the Germans did, according to the grandmother. Now it’s best to let history rest in peace.
This is a sobering look at how the descendants of diehard Nazis struggle to cope with their heritage.
Do you keep looking for something that will hurt? Or do you keep hurting from that fear?
Born in Brazil to a mother who was born in German-occupied Poland, Julie Lindahl had been lied to throughout her young life.  She was aware that her grandmother, now living her last years in Germany, held some odd ideas, but there seemed little to contradict the story that her family had been farmers, first in western Poland, after the war in northern Germany, and finally in Brazil.  

After college at Wellesley, Julie spent a year at Oxford and then had a Fulbright in Germany, and her conversations with her grandmother became more troubling.  Some time afterward, a deep depression struck.  Believing that her family's web of lies and denials were at the root of her depression, her husband encouraged her to research her family's history in the German Federal Archives in Berlin.  The documents revealed that her grandfather had joined the Nazi party even before 1933.  Both her maternal grandparents were SS members and had applied for membership as a couple.  Far from being a simple farmer in Poland, her grandfather had been part of the brutal, even murderous land grab and occupation in the name of “Lebensraum.”  

Driven to find out the whole truth, Julie travelled to Poland and interviewed people, by then in their 70s and 80s, who remembered "Opa"'s monstrous brutality.  Further research in the province of Schleswig-Holstein pointed to her grandfather's association with unrepentant Nazis after the war.  Finally, she travelled to Brazil, hoping to uncover the rest of the story and the last years of her grandfather's life.  There she discovered both the farm her grandfather had built, deep in the jungle where he would never be discovered, and an uncle whose existence the family had concealed for over 40 years.  She learned more about how the networks of former Nazis renewed themselves in the red soil of the basin.  But if she had hoped to find any recognition of the crimes that had gone unpunished, or of Brazilian society's role in protecting the criminals, she was disappointed. It was as though all traces of their crimes had been obliterated. Her grandfather's property had been placed in his Brazilian lawyer's name and then disappeared.  

Lindahl has found the confrontation with her family's past liberating and transformative.  Like Walter Benjamin, she questions the value of closure; "Was this closure?  I understood why many had wished it for me, but still wondered what it was.  Maybe a sort of emotional landing in which I could get on with the everyday and return to "normality?"  Yet I was still floating without gravity in a universe of question marks, with a heart pounding with both the agony of knowledge and the love of those I had met along the way."  Instead of considering her project of coming to terms with her family's past closed, she has channeled that energy into creating a nonprofit organization, "Stories for Children," which seeks to bring about social transformation.  

Having travelled extensively for my own research, I could appreciate the intellectual and spiritual journey Julie’s quest involved, as well as the geographical one.  But her story, unlike mine, is just gripping.  In the right hands, this could translate into a brilliant film.