Those Who Forget

By: Geraldine Schwarz

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur

“[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).

Relevant and necessary

Compelling history to understand, share and prevent from repeating. Very well-written, clear and concise! Timely for a darkening world.

Those who forget

I liked the fact that it was written by a descendant of a German family. It was a well written story from a German and French perspective and not from a survivor of the holocaust.
The reader was excellent as she showed passion and empathy in her voice.
It was easy to listen to.
As an American immigrant leaving a troubled country it helped me realize that what We did for our children

A fresh perspective of the holocaust enablers

I liked it all. Nothing happens without enablers, supporters, and apathetic bystanders. The worst of History is repeating in the US right now.

Not what it purports to be

I wa disappointed yet again, another book that “promises” but does not deliver. Some, a bit, maybe 25% of the book is about her family, and of that 25%, perhaps 10% addresses the motivation of her family ( her grandparents) in acting as they did during the war. The rest of the book is just a review of The Nazi regime which, if you have read any amount of the same ( and I will presume most who purchase the book will have done that) is - perhaps - pitched at a high school textbook level. There are long discussions of Germany after the War, denazification, in general, not her grandparents; discussions of new Nazi groups in the 80’s; and I almost returned the book when we get to the recent Syrian refugee crisis. Not because each of these areas are not unimportant. But, rather, if I wanted a book on general German history ( simplified) I would have ordered one. This, as I am encountering again and again of late, is not about what it claims to be about. Waste of a good credit, sorry.