Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me

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Translator
  
Carolin Sommer

Publication date
  
2015

Illustrator
  
Thorsten Wulff

ISBN
  
1615192530

Author
  
Jennifer Teege with Nikola Sellmair

Publisher
  
New York : The Experiment

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me is a book by the German writer Jennifer Teege (born 1973, Munich). It covers her discovery that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, nicknamed the "Butcher of Plaszow" and famously depicted in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List. Teege was adopted and learned about her family history after reading her mother's biography in the Hamburg library.

The book was published in the United Kingdom and United States on 14 April 2015 through The Experiment and was co-written by Nikola Sellmair. The work details Teege's discovery of her ancestry and her attempts to come to terms with this revelation. Teege decides to research her family and travels to Israel and Kraków. Through this she also tries to reconnect with her estranged mother.

Critical reception for the book has been positive and My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me has received praise from the Seattle Times, Washington Post, and The Sunday Times. The Jewish Book Council and the News Tribune also praised the book, with the News Tribune stating that it resonated with them "because it demonstrates that we are a product of our past, but we don’t have to be bound by it. Ultimately, it is up to us to understand we cannot change the past, but it is we who are in charge of our future." In contrast, Maclean's panned the work, stating that it was a "dull affair" and "brings new and unintended meaning to the banality of evil".

References

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me Wikipedia