My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past

by Jennifer Teege

  My grandmother’s postcard is of a painting by Paula Modersohn-Becker, Peasant Girl with Arms Folded. It shows a serious and proud-looking young girl, her arms crossed in front of her body. She is about the same age I would have been when my grandmother wrote the card. Irene’s handwriting is itself a work of art. She took great care in writing the card, care that is typical of her generation. She wrote, “Dear Jennifer, wishing you a wonderful birthday and another 364 happy days in your new year. Do you like reading? I hope so, and if you do I am sure you will enjoy this book. I think of you often. Give my regards to your parents. Yours, Irene.” The message is lovely and heartfelt. It makes me happy to see the word “Yours” in front of her signature.

  Paula Modersohn-Becker’s painting Peasant Girl with Arms Folded. Ruth Irene Goeth sent this card to her granddaughter for Jennifer’s seventh birthday

  ■ ■ ■

  Inge Sieber, Jennifer Teege’s adoptive mother, remembers that for a while, when she was still small, Jennifer hoped that her grandmother would take her in.

  Once, before the adoption, Ruth Irene Goeth visited Jennifer and her new family. She called beforehand and asked if she could come by, so Jennifer’s foster parents invited her for afternoon coffee. Inge Sieber found Ruth Irene to be friendly and thoughtful; she was wearing a long patchwork skirt and looked nothing like a grandma. “She was dressed in these shabby-chic clothes. Flashy, extravagant, but not false. I was 25 years younger, but next to her I felt like a little old housewife.” Jennifer’s grandmother stayed for a couple of hours, asked lots of questions, and was generally very interested in Jennifer’s new family.

  At around the same time, in the mid-’70s, the Israeli historian Tom Segev visited Ruth Irene Goeth at her apartment in Schwabing.

  Segev was not yet the scholar and journalist of international fame he would go on to become; he was just a young PhD student from Boston University. For his thesis on concentration camp commandants, he traveled all over Germany to interview the close relatives and friends of many Nazi perpetrators. He hoped that they would provide answers to his questions about the camp commandants’ frame of mind and the motives that drove them. His work was published under the title Soldiers of Evil: The Commandants of the Nazi Concentration Camps.

  His study sheds light on not only the commandants’ psyche, but also that of their closest relatives, usually their widows. Segev writes: “They agree to be interviewed by me because they are haunted by a past that they cannot seem to escape. . . . Each of these people hoped that they could whitewash their past, if only a little bit.”

  All of those questioned played down their time at the camps. For example, Fanny Fritzsch, widow of Auschwitz prison camp leader Karl Fritzsch, had “no difficulties to explain the atrocities her husband was accused of. She had simply decided that they had never happened,” Segev writes. According to Fanny Fritzsch, nobody died at Auschwitz. She told Segev that Fritzsch had been “the best husband on Earth,” and that she had raised their children based on his model.

  Ruth Irene Goeth stands out amongst the interviewees: True, she also plays down what Amon Goeth did, but at the same time she puts on a show as the profligate widow, downright wallowing in reminiscences of her time in the camp. Segev writes about his visit with Ruth Irene Goeth:

  “In the late seventies, Ruth Goeth lived in an apartment that had seen better days. She received me in a Chinese wrap dress. Dark green velvet curtains covered in dust and heavy furniture gave the apartment a gloomy air. She sat down on the sofa, crossed her legs and—through a long holder—smoked one cigarette after another, her little finger coyly raised. It was a carefully staged performance; it was not difficult for the former actress to affect a nihilism that was evocative of Weimar Germany in the 1920s. ‘Oh, well, Płaszów,’ she said in a husky, raspy voice. ‘Yes, yes, Płaszów.’ She paused and then suddenly said: ‘They will tell you that I had a horse there and that I was a whore. Indeed, I did keep company with a large number of officers, but only until I met Goeth. And he gave me a horse. I used to love riding then. Ah, Goeth—a picture of a man!’ I could not help feeling that she enjoyed every single moment of her performance. . . .

  “‘It was a wonderful time’, his widow said. ‘We enjoyed each other’s company. My Amon was king, I was his queen. Who wouldn’t have relished that?’ She added that she was only sorry it was all over.”

  As to Amon Goeth’s victims, Ruth Irene Goeth adds: “They weren’t really people like us. They were so filthy.”

  ■ ■ ■

  I AM STANDING AT THE TOP of the watchtower, looking out over the vast area of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. “The size of at least 100 soccer fields,” another tourist says next to me in German.

  An icy wind is blowing around the tower. I think about zipping up my coat. The people here suffered terribly from the cold. Will I be better able to share their feelings, their desperation, if I keep my jacket open? Must I keep it open? Must I imagine what it was like being crammed double and triple into bunk beds, living in drafty barracks without heating or stoves, not being allowed to go to the toilet at night, and how they dealt with it if they were suffering from diarrhea?

  Is there any point at all to my coming to Auschwitz—hasn’t it all been written up in the history books anyway?

  I’ve never been here before, but if I had to draw a picture of a concentration camp it would look like this. The gate to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the tracks that lead into the camp, the vast sky above the barracks. When I think of the words “concentration camp,” I see the tracks of Birkenau in my head—and the faces of the emaciated people who were liberated from the camp, their large eyes set deeply in their sockets. These images are imprinted on most people’s minds—and firmly fixed in my own.

  I walk along the tracks until they end abruptly. Many of the people who climbed down from the cattle cars right here were already half-dead when they arrived. At the ramp, they were divided into two groups: one went straight to the gas chambers, and the other was forced to work. The trains from Płaszów probably arrived here, too.

  The gas chambers and crematoria stood at the edge of the meadow, in front of the birches that Birkenau is named for. Shortly before their withdrawal in January 1945, the Nazis dismantled the buildings and demolished the last remaining crematorium.

  Over a million people died here. We are walking over their ashes.

  Some of my fellow travelers are asking lots of questions; I just listen. In the children’s barracks, simple pictures have been drawn on the cold, bare walls. Pictures of a normal childhood: children with a doll, a toy drum, a wooden pull-along pony. I am reminded of my own sons. These children here were alone, unprotected.

  The tour guide hurries us along; we have to get back to the bus—we need to move on to Auschwitz I, the smaller main camp. A few minutes later we arrive, and I walk through the entrance gate displaying the motto “Arbeit Macht Frei”—“Work brings freedom.” I recognize it immediately; I have seen it in photographs innumerable times. It feels strange walking through here now, unreal somehow.

  When I visited the Płaszów memorial yesterday, I came not just as Jennifer Teege but also as the granddaughter of Amon Goeth. My grandfather was the key figure there, so the place concerned me directly. Now, one day later in Auschwitz, I am but one visitor among many.

  The tour of the fenced-in compound begins. The path takes us to the row of red brick buildings that house the museum’s exhibits with their display cases, photos, and statistics. So many numbers. There is something impersonal about numbers; they confuse me. I prefer letters.

  I walk from room to room, from one building to the next. I am not prepared for the room that I enter next: a huge pile of spectacles behind a glass wall. After that, a room full of shoes: boots, sandals, a lady’s red slipper.

  And then a mountain of human hair. Why must I suddenly recall my last haircut? Just a small amount of trimmed hair was left on the floor. Here, there are two tons. When the Red Army liberated the
camp, they found seven tons of human hair, two of which are exhibited here. Seven tons of human hair, an inconceivable amount. The hair belonged to the murdered women and girls; it was destined for use in felt materials and sweaters.

  More displays: crutches, prostheses, wooden legs, stilts, hairbrushes, shaving brushes. And pacifiers, baby clothes, two small wooden clogs, tiny knitted mittens.

  Behind glass, suitcases with names and addresses written on them in chalk: Neubauer Gertrude, orphan. Albert Berger, Berlin. There is a Hamburg address, too.

  I step into narrow walkways lined with row after row of photographs of the camp inmates. I enjoy photography, especially portraits. I like to get really close up so I don’t miss anything. I study these photos closely. Some prisoners look proudly into the camera, others are frightened. Most of the faces wear vacant expressions. These are portraits of the dead.

  In the beginning, the newly arrived prisoners were photographed; later, they were tattooed with identification numbers instead. The ink used to tattoo the prisoners was supplied by the Pelikan company. At school, we used to write with Pelikan fountain pens and Pelikan ink, and we never thought anything of it.

  I go back outside, sit down on a bench, and take a few deep breaths of fresh air. I need a break and want to be on my own.

  After a little while I rejoin my group. We visit the so-called “death block” next, hidden behind tall walls. Prisoners were shot in the yard. Nobody could see in from the outside, but the cries and the shots could be heard. I go down into the dark basement. There are narrow chambers within the walls: standing cells, too tight to sit down in. Prisoners had to crawl to get inside. After a day’s work, four prisoners would have had to share one of these cells, standing up in the dark the whole night long. This was a punishment for so-called camp crimes. One prisoner, for example, was sentenced to seven nights in a standing cell for hiding a cap in his straw mattress for protection against the cold. The cells would not be opened again until the following morning. Sometimes a man would have died by then, and the other prisoners would have spent the night pressed tightly against his corpse. I push for more details. Who comes up with such cruelties? People like my grandfather. There were standing cells at Płaszów, too.

  More and more visitors are pushing down into the cramped basement. People are pushing me from all sides, and I hasten back outside. In a way, it is a good thing that so many people come to Auschwitz, that they are not running away from history.

  Near the office of former camp commandant Rudolf Hoess, we pass the gallows where Hoess was hanged after the war. The man who organized the mass murders at Auschwitz. I remember reading that, when Hoess and my grandfather were extradited to Poland together, the mob attacked Amon Goeth and wanted to lynch him. I was shocked. Their reaction illustrates the extent of the hatred people felt for my grandfather. It wasn’t Spielberg’s film that turned my grandfather into evil personified; he had already become a symbol of sadism while he was still alive.

  A group of teenagers has gathered around the spot where Hoess was executed. I watch them from a distance and wonder what they are feeling right now. Anger? Gratification? Indifference?

  One of the gas chambers avoided demolition, and one of the crematoria as well. The room is dark, the ceilings are low. I peer into the dark hole of the incinerator while, next to me, other tourists are filming the surreal surroundings with their cell phones.

  And then it all becomes too much; I need to get away from Auschwitz. I feel as if I am being choked. This place is too dark, like a deep hole, like a grave that is pulling me in. I don’t want to be sucked in. It doesn’t help the victims or me if I only see myself as a perpetrator’s granddaughter and only grieve and suffer as such. I’m glad I came here, but I’ll never come back.

  I wish someone had made my grandmother come and see this place. Surely, here, she would have had to open her eyes at last.

  ■ ■ ■

  In the early 1980s, London filmmaker Jon Blair was working on a documentary about Oskar Schindler in agreement with Steven Spielberg. In doing so, Blair carried out much of the research that laid the foundation for the feature film Schindler’s List. He talked with Schindler’s widow Emilie and many survivors. Even 65-year-old Ruth Irene Goeth agreed to an interview, despite being very ill; she was suffering from pulmonary emphysema and was at times dependent on an oxygen tank. Ruth Irene Goeth expected Blair to come alone and to ask her about Oskar Schindler. Instead he rolled up with an entire film crew and asked questions about Amon Goeth. It was a long interview.

  The video shows a well-groomed and made-up woman, her jet-black hair piled up high on her head, yet she is ravaged by her disease and constantly gasping for air. She speaks English and chooses her words carefully.

  And she still defends Amon Goeth: “He was no brutal murderer. No more than the others. He was like everybody else in the SS. He killed a few Jews, yes, but not many. The camp was no fun park, of course.”

  She claims that, before the camp, Amon Goeth never had any dealings with Jews. She omits any mention of the bloody ghetto liquidations Amon Goeth organized before and during his time as commandant at Płaszów.

  After the war, Ruth Irene Goeth was still in contact with Oskar Schindler, sporadically and on friendly terms. In the interview with Blair, she says that Schindler treated the Jews well, but mostly because they were useful to him. Schindler, Goeth, she herself—“we were all good Nazis,” she says, “we couldn’t be anything else.” There had been no alternative, she claims; nobody liked the Jews—that was how they had been brought up.

  When asked about herself, Ruth Irene Goeth explains: “I always felt that it was all wrong, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules of those times. Whenever Amon and I had an argument, I would say that I was leaving; I didn’t want to have to witness any more of this. But then the maids would come and say to me, please don’t leave us, you always help us, what would we do without you?”

  She describes herself as a guardian angel to those girls: “The whole camp was saying, ‘God has sent us an angel.’ And that angel was me.”

  When Blair observes that the only reason Ruth Irene Goeth had to protect the maids in the first place was because Amon Goeth would threaten and beat them, she counters that most people weren’t treating their staff particularly well at the time.

  In the end, it wasn’t the maids’ pleading that made her stay, it was her love for Amon Goeth. Ruth Irene says: “He was a very handsome man, well liked by everybody. He was obliging towards his friends, and he was charming—just not towards the prisoners, no, not at all.” Amon Goeth had closer dealings with some inmates than others, and some he actually liked, she contends. But, she adds, there were so many Jews in the camp, it was impossible to know each and every one of them.

  When pressed by Jon Blair, Ruth Irene Goeth admits that there were indeed old people and children in the camp, yet claims that she “never saw” the children. But then she recalls the children being deported, as already described to her daughter Monika—presumably when the trucks left Płaszów for Auschwitz. “Only once did I see that they were taking children away on a truck, and I was very sad; it tugged at my heartstrings. But a friend of mine said, ‘They’re only Jews.’”

  When questioned by Blair whether she has any regrets about those times, she answers: “Yes, yes, honestly. But I never hurt anyone. Nobody can prove that I ever did anything wicked.”

  She claims that she never went inside the camp, never went near any of the barracks. She stayed in the villa, inside her “four small walls.” From the villa, she was only able to see the prisoners in the quarry; they appeared to be completely normal workers, she argues. And no, she did not know that some of the workers died at the quarry. No, she never saw the executions that took place on the hill either, just a few hundred yards from her house.

  Women forced to work at Płaszów

  Shortly before her death, Ruth Irene Goeth showed her first signs of remorse. She told her daughter Monika: “I should h
ave done more to help. Maybe my illness is God’s punishment for not doing enough.”

  On January 29, 1983, the day after her interview with Jon Blair, Ruth Irene Goeth took an overdose of sleeping pills.

  Perhaps Ruth Irene Goeth was afraid of what was to come once Jon Blair’s documentary aired. Yet that certainly wasn’t her main reason to commit suicide: She had first spoken of taking her own life months before the recording session.

  In her suicide note to her daughter, Ruth Irene Goeth wrote: “Dear Monika . . . Please forgive me for all the mistakes I’ve made . . . I am leaving. I am a wreck. A burden to myself and everybody else. It is so hard to be locked up with this illness all by myself. I want to go to sleep and never wake up again. Everywhere I look, fear is staring back at me. Believe me, it wasn’t an easy decision, but this life, being chained to the couch, is dreadful. Take care. Don’t be so hard all the time. I have been so desperate. My life would have been one long illness. . . . Remember me well . . . you didn’t make it easy for me either. But I have always loved you as you love your own child. Your mother.”

  Not a single word about her time with Amon Goeth.

  ■ ■ ■

  I CAN HARDLY WAIT TO SEE my grandmother in the documentary about Oskar Schindler; I haven’t seen her for so long. Now I will be able to look at her on the screen. I borrow the film from the same library where I first found the book about my mother.

  The film consists of a string of interviews that the director, Jon Blair, conducted with contemporary witnesses. I keep asking myself when my grandmother will make her appearance. I fast-forward and rewind but can’t seem to find the segment. At last, at 17 minutes, my grandmother appears.

  She sits on a chair, bolt upright, looking straight into the camera. Her face is beautiful with fine features. She still has something youthful about her. She looks just as I remember her. As if time had stood still.