Black Woman Reveals She Is Biological Granddaughter Of Schindler’s List Nazi

Jennifer Teege is mixed race- German and Nigerian. This is hardly unusual in this day and age; after all, there are plenty of people around the world who have ancestors of various races. However, there is something a bit different about Jennifer Teege: her maternal grandfather was Amon Goeth.

Now, most people do not know who Amon Goeth is right off the tops of their heads. However, most?do?know about the 1993 classic?Schindler’s List,?which is one of the most famously poignant Holocaust movies ever made. Amon Goeth is the man, played by Ralph Fiennes, who infamously shoots Jewish Holocaust victims from his balcony, sipping wine, as he watches his dogs rip them apart.

Jennifer Teege, like millions of other people around the world, watched the film. However, she never made any connection to her own life and family until she picked up a book about Amon Goeth’s life as an SS Captain in a library. As is to be expected, Teege was floored. She says of the experience:

“It was like the carpet was ripped out beneath my feet. I had to go and lie down on a bench.”

It is no wonder that Teege, who is now an author and a mother of two living in Hamburg, Germany, didn’t initially know who her grandfather was. Though her birth name is Goeth, her existence comes as the result of an affair that her mother, Monika, had with a Nigerian student. Teege was left on the steps of an orphanage when she was just a few weeks old.

Growing up in Munich, Teege occasionally saw her birth mother, but the identity of her Grandfather was a dark family secret, and kept from her. Teege’s grandmother, Ruth, who lived as Amon Goeth’s lover and worked as his secretary in the Plaszkow camp in Poland under Germany’s occupation, never told anyone either. Teege says that she saw the film when she lived in Israel as a student, and explains how she never made the connection:

“Even though my birth name is Goeth, it wasn’t written out on the screen ? so when I heard it in the film, it didn’t even occur to me that there could be a link. I drew no connection with my own life.”

Teege then speaks of the most chilling part of all of her life- altering discovery:

“Now I know that, as I have black skin, he would have seen me as sub-human like the Jews he killed.”

Jennifer’s grandfather was executed in 1946 for his crimes. His family still wallows in their shadows, though. Ruth committed suicide in 1983. Monika hid the truth from Jennifer to protect her, and is now estranged from Jennifer.

And now, Jennifer Teege is, with a co- author, writing a book about being the black granddaughter of one of the most infamously cruel figures of the Holocaust entitled?My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me.

I can only personally wish this family the best in whatever they do to cope with the horrors of their history and to heal.

Read more here on?Daily Mail.?

 

I had a successful career actively working with at-risk youth, people struggling with poverty and unemployment, and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. In 2011, I made the decision to pursue my dreams and become a full-time writer. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.