The book “Can we Talk… Will you Listen”? – a non-fiction narrative - describes the personal journey of the author towards the healing power of dialogue, both as descendant of Nazi Germany and today white in South Africa. The author shares her experience of engaging in dialogue for several years with young South Africans of diverse backgrounds at the Cape Town Holocaust Foundation based on the theme: “Our history lives in us and affects the choices we each make. We need to talk - being in conversation with each other about our difficult history can be freeing and healing”.
The book captures moving testimony by participants in response to the author’s open and intimate sharing of her life journey and the struggle of coming to terms with ‘loving parents and their evil choices’.
Born in a small Northern German village one year after the demise of the Nazi regime and the end of the Holocaust, this book captures the author’s epic life journey. She flees her country of birth, choosing to live and work as an emigrant on various continents and today in South after a long and painful confrontation with her devote Nazi family’s withdrawal into silence, denial and violence.
The author describes how life in South Africa becomes increasingly challenging and leads to the realization that post-apartheid white society shows many of the same patterns as post Nazi German society: resistance with regard to facing and owning past destructive choices, defense mechanisms such as denial, blaming and self-victimizing; avoidance behavior that divides rather than unites.
The uniqueness of the author’s approach is her courage to openly and honestly talk about her personal struggle and in making the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, the ‘benchmark of evil’ with regard to gross human rights violation –– accessible to young South Africans. Dialogue participants have often said that they felt encouraged by the author’s narrative to touch their own anguish and confront conflicting feelings and challenges about their families and communities.
It is the purpose of this book to inspire open conversations about discrimination and stereotyping, racism, perpetrator – victim dynamics and the trans-generational impact of a traumatic or shameful history. The Cape Town Holocaust Foundation in co-operation with the German embassy produced a documentary video of the author’s dialogue session which resonated deeply with participants from surrounding high schools, students and teachers from major Western Cape universities, psychiatric nurses and members of civic society.
The book captures moving testimony by participants in response to the author’s open and intimate sharing of her life journey and the struggle of coming to terms with ‘loving parents and their evil choices’.
Born in a small Northern German village one year after the demise of the Nazi regime and the end of the Holocaust, this book captures the author’s epic life journey. She flees her country of birth, choosing to live and work as an emigrant on various continents and today in South after a long and painful confrontation with her devote Nazi family’s withdrawal into silence, denial and violence.
The author describes how life in South Africa becomes increasingly challenging and leads to the realization that post-apartheid white society shows many of the same patterns as post Nazi German society: resistance with regard to facing and owning past destructive choices, defense mechanisms such as denial, blaming and self-victimizing; avoidance behavior that divides rather than unites.
The uniqueness of the author’s approach is her courage to openly and honestly talk about her personal struggle and in making the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, the ‘benchmark of evil’ with regard to gross human rights violation –– accessible to young South Africans. Dialogue participants have often said that they felt encouraged by the author’s narrative to touch their own anguish and confront conflicting feelings and challenges about their families and communities.
It is the purpose of this book to inspire open conversations about discrimination and stereotyping, racism, perpetrator – victim dynamics and the trans-generational impact of a traumatic or shameful history. The Cape Town Holocaust Foundation in co-operation with the German embassy produced a documentary video of the author’s dialogue session which resonated deeply with participants from surrounding high schools, students and teachers from major Western Cape universities, psychiatric nurses and members of civic society.
