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Those Who Forget

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This book is partly a story about the author’s German grandparents who were “neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaufer.” I found the book very enjoyable while she stayed on topic of her ancestors living in Germany – before, during and after World War II. The gain and loss of small petroleum products business made a large impact on her family. The background on the lives of both sides of her family, German and French, was fascinating. But that is where it stopped…

For me, I found the book tedious when she deviated from this topic. The book has so many rabbit trails above and beyond World War II, such as, the history of Germany, Britain, France, and numerous other countries. Actually, the book extends to current day politics including the United States. If I had known she would get into the recent U.S. political climate, I would have totally passed on this book. The title is very misleading since it seemed most of the book is NOT about her family’s story in Nazi Europe, which I found most interesting. It is weighed down with so much of the author’s opinion and world history that I really did not enjoy the book since the title of the book set different expectations.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Simon & Schuster, for an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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A very, very well written piece of nonfiction. I truly learned so much from this book, too. Hard to put down.

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#Those Who Forget, has won international awards and acclaim by author # Geraldine Schwartz. This is a memoir of the past and a warning for today. A account of her family's past with the Nazis during World War Two. A beautiful autobiography.
Thank you,
# Netgalley, # Geraldine Schwartz, and #Scribner for the advanced copy

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My Review can be found at Bookbrowse.com (https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr267136)

Growing up in Germany and France, Géraldine Schwarz became curious about how Hitler rose to power, how people reacted to his ascendance and ultimate defeat, and more specifically what role her grandparents played as German citizens during this time. She discusses her findings and issues a warning about history repeating itself in her debut book, Those Who Forget, translated by Laura Marris.

Schwarz's grandparents were what she refers to as "Mitläufer" – those who "followed the current" – neither ardent supporters of Hitler's policies nor adamantly opposed to them, people who just continued to live their lives as the effects of the policies took shape. Like so many others, they turned a blind eye to the increasingly brutal treatment of their Jewish neighbors while benefiting from the political situation. One of Hitler's earlier moves was to economically incapacitate the Jewish population by forcing them to sell their businesses and property to non-Jews. The author shows how her grandfather took advantage of this by buying out a profitable petroleum business. He later excused his actions by claiming he gave the seller a better price than required under German law and consequently was actually helping him. It's the many "little blindnesses," Schwarz states, that allowed the government persecutions to continue, and "although the impact of each Mitläufer was tiny on an individual level it had a cumulative effect," eventually allowing "conditions for the worst state-orchestrated crimes known to humanity."

According to the author, a "pathological amnesia" developed after World War II. She realized that "in the apocalyptic atmosphere of postwar Germany, the priority was not revisiting the past but pulling together a new life." Her father, born during WWII, told her that the war years were never discussed when he was growing up. His history books ended with the Weimar Republic — the German government put in place following Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication in 1918 and remaining until Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933. Terms like "Konzentrationslager" (concentration camp) and "SS-Mann" (SS soldier) were removed from dictionaries. When Germans did remember the Hitler era at all, it was often tinged with nostalgia.

Schwarz goes on to discuss how under Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany from 1982–1998, the country began to repair itself. She credits Kohl with forcing the population to remember the past and face their complicity, writing that "memory, when it is deliberately cultivated, can heal many wounds," and accuses other countries of refusing to come to terms with the uglier parts of their histories. Referencing France's cooperation with Germany during WWII and the Allies' deliberate carpet-bombing of civilian targets, among other examples, she extends this line of thinking to hypothesize that societies that do not do what she calls "memory work" are on a dire path: "[I]f history as such does not repeat itself, sociological and psychological mechanisms do, which push individuals and societies to make irrational choices by supporting regimes and leaders who are opposed to their interests, by becoming complicit in criminal ideas and actions." Schwarz urges readers to be aware of and on the lookout for these mechanisms.

I was expecting the author to draw stark parallels between the rise of Nazism and our current partisan climate, but while politically minded readers will certainly see similarities, she isn't explicit. Indeed, I was surprised at how little she emphasizes the worldwide rise of populist leaders and the widespread increase in xenophobia, calling out specific leaders and issues, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's anti-immigration policies, only briefly and late in the book. She hardly mentions the American president — just a few sentences — though her critique of him is scathing, stating that although his election was the impetus for writing the book, "Donald Trump is not a fascist - partly because he cannot commit to a cause other than himself. He is an opportunist who uses the same methods of mass manipulation that the fascists used a century ago in Europe."

Although the transition from history to analysis of current events is relatively abrupt, the placement of brief commentary on recent issues later in the book still works well considering that Schwarz's account is primarily chronological. Also, in deferring this commentary, she avoids turning off readers who disagree with her assessment or who pick up the book because of a specific curiosity about the historical rise of Nazism. In any case, the narrative is fascinating from start to finish, combining a top-notch family memoir with history and social criticism.

Like many, I've pondered the Holocaust over the years, wondering how such a thing could happen, how average, well-meaning people could permit a climate in which others are systematically persecuted or killed. Those Who Forget is enlightening in that regard, and provides a lot of food for thought. Schwarz's warning, too, is an important one that should be heeded. Many of the issues present in 1930s Germany have re-emerged in the past decade (in particular with the international rise of white supremacist groups, encouraged by populist leaders), and only through seeing the parallels can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Hopefully, the book will attract a wide audience, even if some disagree with the author's conclusions. It's an absolutely excellent choice for anyone interested in history and current events, and for book groups, too, providing timely and important fodder for deep discussion.

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Extraordinary work of journalism. Winner of the European Book Prize and other awards in Germany and the authors native France. Schwarz uses the personal history of her parents and grandparents to expound upon the importance of preserving national memory. She details how Germany was able to come to terms with its nationalist Nazi past to become one of the worlds strongest democracies. She also draws parallels between other countries such as Italy and France who struggle with accepting the blame of their fascist pasts.

Utterly fascinating review of history and also sadly relevant to today's political climate. The importance of memory work among a nation's population is paramount to its success. To paraphrase Schwarz "Without this memory work, individuals and societies will be pushed to make irrational choices by supporting regimes and leaders who are opposed to their interest, by becoming complicit in criminal ideas and actions." Sadly, I feel like this already taking place in the US. There are striking similarities between the alt-right movement in the US and the Nazi party rise in the 1930s. This book serves as a warning. Definitely required reading for any WW2 historian, history lover, or political junkie. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

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In French there is a word for people who lose their memory, or forget things: “les amnésiques”. The word comes from the Latin word “amnesia”, also used in English, which means a complete or partial loss of memory due to trauma, injury etc. Géraldine Schwarz uses this term as the original title of her book (translated to Those Who Forget in English), and I think it accurately sums up the main theme that prevails through-out the book: that awful tendency that we humans have to erase and forget certain parts of our history in order to live guilt-free. That whole “I didn’t participate in XYZ, so I was not part of it” attitude that is still a core part of our make-up today. The ability that we have to not hold ourselves accountable for acts committed by those around us, telling ourselves that because we did not actually physically commit those acts, we were not part of it. Well, silence is complicit, and silence allows violence to become genocide, and hatred to become state-sanctioned mass murder.

Géraldine Schwarz is a German and French journalist, and Those Who Forget is a deep dive into her family’s past, but also a general overview of Germany before, during, and after the war, and the Germans in general during that time. There is a term for Germans who were not active Nazi followers, those who just followed the current: “Mitlaüfer”. Schwarz grew up thinking that her German grandparents were Mitlaüfer, but when she discovers that her grandfather appears to have taken his own advantage of anti-Semitism in 1938, she starts to wonder how complicit he actually was, and how complicit the entire population was. Schwarz also studies the actions of the French side of her family as her mother’s father was a Vichy policeman during the war. I really love how the author creates a story by weaving through three generations of her family, and each generation's own way of reckoning with what their country and their people did during the war. Within these studies the author takes us on a personal journey of discovery, but also on a more general journey into our collective ability to forget and move on, while burying the past, and what this actually means for our future. If we bury the past how can we move forward without committing the same acts down the road? If we remain silent in the face of wrong, how can we really hope to make a change in the future?

This is such a timely book, as I feel that, once again, we are at a crossroads, and our actions, as individuals and as populations in general, will dictate how the future unrolls. Nazism, Fascism, and Anti-Semitism were never wiped out, but hastily buried in a shallow grave with a breathing tube. I appreciated the parallels that the author draws with other atrocities committed elsewhere (slavery in the US for example), portraying how none of us are safe from being persecuted and/or complicit in persecution of others.

I asked my sister to send me a copy of this book in the original language as I want to be able to read it again in French. Part memoir, part history, part warning, this is a must read in my opinion, and also a call to action: do we really want to continue to watch the same atrocities be committed over and over again, standing by and pretending that we are not guilty by association? Or do we want to stand up and actually say NO MORE and mean it? I know what side of history I want to be standing on.

Thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for the advance copy in return for an honest review.

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“If conceiving of Auschwitz was difficult, it was still impossible to have 'seen nothing, heard nothing,' and for some, 'done nothing,' as my grandparents’ generation claimed until their deaths.

This book is both heavily researched and personal as the writer examines the culpability of former Nazi sympathizers not only in her own family but in the region. At times it was hard to read and be reminded of just how the world turned its back on the Jews and the subsequent denial or "amnesia" that followed WWII, but this is an important book told from an angle I've not previously read. Schwarz traces xenophobia past the fall of the Berlin wall and immigration in present times. Yet she writes, "how I love Berlin." Schwarz reminds us that, "On the ashes of dictatorships, people built democracy, liberty, and peace through their own hard work."

Schwarz tackles colonialism and draws connections to the horrific crimes against Indigenous people in the US as well as slavery and the US's historical treatment of people of color. It is a call to awaken our "collective awareness" of our monstrous pasts.

The final chapter has a thoughtful analysis on Trump in terms of Fascism that is exceedingly timely and nuanced.

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This is the author's family during WWII and their participation, or lack thereof in it. This book will give you a different view of everyday people during the war. I would recommend this book to all history buffs.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

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Heartbreaking moving touching.The author shares with us her family’s life during the Holocaust.This is so eye opening historical fiction at its best highly recommend.#netgalley#scribnerbooks

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Those Who Forget
My Family's Story in Nazi Europe – A Memoir, A History, A Warning
by Geraldine Schwarz


Scribner
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 22 Sep 2020



I am reviewing a copy of Those Who Forget through Scribner and Netgalley:


Géraldine Schwartz grandparents were neither heroes or villains during World War 2. They were simply Mitlaüfer those who followed the current. After the war ended they wanted to bury the past under the wreckage the third reich left behind.



The first mass deportation of the Jews took place in the region Geraldine’s grandparents lived in October 1940. When more than 6500 Jews from the southwest of the country were deported to the Gurs camp in the south of France.


After the war Geraldine’s Fathers family never talked about politics and in general discussions at the dinner table were rare.


Geraldine’s Grandparents has thought their past was buried under the wreckage of the third reich until it reared it’s ugly head one morning in January of 1946. Karl Schwarz found an envelope in the mailbox with a return address that immediately implied bad tidings—Dr. Rebstein-Metzger, Lawyer, Mannheim.



It wasn’t until decades later, while going through old filing cabinets in Mannheim that Schwartz discovers that in 1938, her paternal grandfather decided to take advantageous Nazi policies and bought a business from a Jewish Family for far less than what it was worth. She also finds letters from the only survivor of the family her Grandfather had bought the business from, (the rest had died in Auschwitz). The letter demanded reparations, but her Grandfather refused to admit his responsibility. Géraldine finds herself questioning the past. She can’t help but question how guilty her grandparents were. She questions what makes a person complicit? She investigates the role of her Grandfather on her Mother’s side a policeman in Vichy.



Those Who Forget weaves together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe’s process of post-war reckoning, Schwartz explores how millions were seduced by twisted ideology, and overcome by denial over what happened after the war. And In Germs especially managed to transform collective guilt into democratic responsibility. In this book She asks: How can nations learn from history? And she observes that countries that avoid confronting the past are especially vulnerable to extremism.



I would recommend Those Who Forget to anyone who has ever posed the question how can we learn from history.


I give Those Who. Forget five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

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Géraldine Schwarz is a French-German journalist who takes it upon herself to reckon with her family's complicity in the Third Reich. She traces the progression of political, social, and cultural opinions after World War II, showing the tide slowly turning against Nazism. Shockingly, after the war, many "everyday" Germans were quick to deny culpability for the Reich and the Holocaust - they were simply Mitlaufer, a category in the U.S.-occupied section of Germany that meant they were just going along with the tide, supporting some of the NSDAP's beliefs but not taking any strong stance for or against the war. Schwarz is quick to refute this categorization. Although many Germans hid behind the idea that they would be punished for going against the Party and that they were supportive of the NSDAP simply for the economic revitalization and not for the anti-Semitism, countless Germans benefitted from the "Aryanization" of German businesses - the informal practice of boycotting Jewish-owned businesses until they had no choice but to sell to Germans for far below market price. Schwarz's own grandfather was one of these Germans, buying a mineral business from a German Jew at barely face value, then denying all blame when that same German Jew filed a reparations suit against Schwarz's grandfather after the war.

Schwarz's documentation of the history of immediate postwar German "reconstruction" was quite interesting. Most works I've read and watched about WWII basically stop after Potsdam, and hardly focus on the punishments that we all expected to be doled out after the war. You'll learn here that punishments were not doled out, not nearly as many as were deserved - people were scared of being implicated, even non-German officials in France and England.

However, after the first third of the book, I found the narrative to be quite meandering and the timeline a bit hard to follow. Schwarz often goes back and forth between pre-war and post-war history, which I understand is needed to show the gradual process of Aryanization and subtle cultural shifts - but the blending of these timelines makes the story slightly confusing. After going through her German grandparent's history, Schwarz enters into more recent history, discussing her father and aunt's upbringing, then introducing her French mother and her French grandparents' side of the story. I would have preferred it be arranged chronologically, with all of the grandparents' stories first, then her parent's generation, then hers. Schwarz goes quite in depth with the French occupation and collaboration with Germany (sometimes it seems that the French were worse than the Germans here!), but this story wasn't as compelling as the recounting of German history.

I enjoyed this piece of history that I haven't read about before - although it could be dense at times, it is a fascinating story, and one that I hope causes other Germans to interrogate their pasts and reckon with the scars in their family's histories.

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Schwartz offers a compelling look at her own family history as well as German and French recaps before and after WWII. She has indepth analysis of Germany's social and political circumstances, interspersed with her own family's history. She also looks at the French wartime occurrences as her mother was French. It offers a specific look at turbulent times. I would have liked to have read more of her family details and and less political history since that what's the synopsis discussed.

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Those Who Forget" is a story of a family that was not a victim of the Nazi regime. On the contrary, they were passive supporters, which shows us what happens when average people just go with the flow. The author is open and candid, she shares some not so glorious family history and choices they made, it takes a lot of courage and humility to make it public, in my opinion. It was very interesting to see what was going on inside the German society after the war, and for decades as well, what were the opinions, how they dealt with shame, guilt, how they felt about the world. This book answers these questions, there is also a lot of history background covered in it. In spite of the whole disaster that the Germans created, they have some admirable qualitites, like focus, tenacity, and most of all the courage to accept their defeat, and ability to ask forgiveness. Even today we see that at least the grandchildren of the Nazi members feel sorry for what was done, if their grandfathers did not say anything. However, the most eye opening thing to me was the role of France in WWII, the deportation of the Jews in France, the Vichy laws. Only the Germans have said sorry, and the French have not, not really.

Also I did not like the way the Soviet soldiers were portrayed, nothing but rapists. They are portrayed as some savages who came to rape and plunder. It would have been nice to show pictures and stories of the things that sophisticated and civilized Arians did to the Slavic women, and their population in general, it would have explained the rage that the Soviet soldiers had. People in the Soviet Union could not even stand the German language for decades after the war, or the look of the German shepherds that were used to hunt and kill them. But history books are always like that, they do justice to some, and not all.

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This book needs to read by everyone!
I’ve read many historical books about WW2 ,but this one touched my heart....
It’s about true and betrayal, it’s about family standard and about meatloafters(for the first time I’ve got the answer,why so many of them with the cold hearts were,why they kept quiet .....)
Bravo for Geraldine Schwarz....

Mariya

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I have read numerous books with WWII content, but this well-written memoir was a step above. The author utilized artifacts from her grandfather's past to create this incredible memoir filled with the horrible truths of the holocaust.

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Could not put this one down. Having read numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction, on WWII I didn’t expect this one to be much different and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Ms Schwarz, in this well-written book, opened my eyes to the cruelties and devastation experienced by the German people as their towns were overtaken by the Nazis during the war.
With her grandfather’s artifacts and her research, she has created a memoir that is extremely interesting and often shocking while grabbing the reader and depositing them inside the apartment buildings as they were targeted by the Allies. I felt as though I were there and could visualize the destruction and emotional turmoil experienced by those who had no where else to go knowing that they could easily be killed while innocently walking down the street. It’s real, sometimes horrific, and needs to be read by every student before they leave high school and every adult who thinks they know what really happened in Europe during WWII.


It was requested that I not publish my review on social media until at least 2 weeks prior to its publication in May 2020.

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