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Those Who Forget

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Those Who Forget

Written by: Geraldine Schwarz
Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
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“[Makes] the very convincing case that, until and unless there is a full accounting for what happened with Donald Trump, 2020 is not over and never will be.” —The New Yorker

“Riveting…we can never be reminded too often to never forget.” —The Wall Street Journal

Journalist Géraldine Schwarz’s astonishing memoir of her German and French grandparents’ lives during World War II “also serves as a perceptive look at the current rise of far-right nationalism throughout Europe and the US” (Publishers Weekly).

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 “deserves to be read and discussed widely...this is Schwarz’s invaluable warning” (The Washington Post Book Review). 20th Century Europe Germany Judaism Military Modern Wars & Conflicts War Imperialism Socialism Holocaust Refugee Survival Social justice Interwar Period
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Very honest & eye opening, I thought I knew about the Holocaust but this provided so much context regarding what regular citizens did (or didn’t do) that caused the events of WWII unfold. It then goes on and asks the hard questions about personal responsibility during those times & the years following. Full of lessons that all humans should learn, those lessons feel especially important these days...

Feels like a very important read, especially now

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