Overview
Those Who Forget, published to international awards and acclaim, is journalist Géraldine Schwarz's riveting account of her German and French grandparents' lives during World War II, an in-depth history of Europe's post-war reckoning with fascism, and an urgent appeal to remember as a defense against today's rise of far-right nationalism. During World War II, Géraldine Schwarz's German grandparents were neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaüfer--those who followed the current. Once the war ended, they wanted to bury the past under the wreckage of the Third Reich. Decades later, while delving through filing cabinets in the basement of their apartment building in Mannheim, Schwarz discovers that in 1938, her paternal grandfather Karl took advantage of Nazi policies to buy a business from a Jewish family for a low price. She finds letters from the only survivor of this family (all the others perished in Auschwitz), demanding reparations. But Karl Schwarz refused to acknowledge his responsibility. Géraldine starts to question the past: How guilty were her grandparents? What makes us complicit? On her mother's side, she investigates the role of her French grandfather, a policeman in Vichy. Weaving together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe's process of post-war reckoning, Schwarz explores how millions were seduced by ideology, overcome by a fog of denial after the war, and, in Germany at least, eventually managed to transform collective guilt into democratic responsibility. She asks: How can nations learn from history? And she observes that countries that avoid confronting the past are especially vulnerable to extremism. Searing and unforgettable, Those Who Forget is a riveting memoir, an illuminating history, and an urgent call for remembering.
Full Product Details
Author: Geraldine Schwarz ,
Laura Marris ,
Kathe Mazur
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Imprint: Simon & Schuster Audio
Dimensions:
Width: 14.70cm
, Height: 2.80cm
, Length: 14.50cm
Weight: 0.227kg
ISBN: 9781797102610
ISBN 10: 1797102613
Publication Date: 22 September 2020
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.
Reviews
An absolutely fascinating book! -- France Television Crystal clear...A haunting work of remembrance. -- Westdeutscher Rundfunk (Cologne, Germany) The book of the hour. -- Die Welt (Berlin) Very enriching...Outstandingly composed. -- Suddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) Absolutely remarkable...reading. [Those Who Forget] is a must. -- France Culture
""It took only two generations for her family's unexceptional wartime past to recede from view. But as the author painstakingly peeled away decades of denial, it was precisely the family's ordinariness that would prove so chilling. Geraldine Schwarz's book is a brave and important contribution to our understanding of memory."" -- ""Daniel Okrent, New York Times bestselling author"" ""Absolutely remarkable...reading. [Those Who Forget] is a must."" -- ""France Culture"" ""An absolutely fascinating book!"" -- ""France Télévision"" ""Crystal clear...A haunting work of remembrance."" -- ""Westdeutscher Rundfunk (Cologne, Germany)"" ""The book of the hour."" -- ""Die Welt (Berlin)"" ""Very enriching...Outstandingly composed."" -- ""Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich)""
Author Information
Géraldine Schwarz is a German-French journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker based in Berlin. Those Who Forget is her first book. It won the European Book Prize, Germany's Winfried Peace Prize, and Italy's NordSud International Prize for Literature and Science and is currently being translated into eight languages. Laura Marris is a poet and translator whose translations include Louis Guilloux's novel Blood Dark, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. She is currently working on the new translation for Albert Camus's The Plague. Kathe Mazur has narrated many audiobooks, winning the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2014, being named a finalist for the Audie Award in 2013 and 2015, and winning several AudioFile Earphones Awards. As an actress, she can be seen as DDA Hobbs on The Closer and in the upcoming Major Crimes. She has worked extensively in film, theater, and television, including appearances on Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, House, Brothers and Sisters, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, ER, Monk, and many others.
