Rating: 
Summary: "Tell me about your life . . ."
Review: "We are not political." This assertion by the German family hosting the senior judge in the 1961 film Judgment At Nuremberg typifies the prevailing attitude of the parents of Hegi's subjects. It lies at the foundation of the "great silence" experienced by Ursula Hegi and other children who had to come to America to discover the Holocaust. Hegi and her peers grew up in a vacuum of information about the Nazi years. Realization came as a shock, disillusioning some, generating anger and resentment in others. But as Hegi's subjects relate, few cast off their roots. Some made pilgrimages to the sites of the Nazi crimes. Others sought understanding from parents who kept them in ignorance. Assembling a collection of interviews with her counterparts, Hegi gives us their viewpoints, life histories and introspections of their pasts. It's a unique and worthy effort. In trying to reveal the present feelings of German children who came to America, Hegi undertook to understand for herself why Germans remained reticent about the Nazi years. She delved into people's lives through the interviews, asking them to examine their own feelings to see how they equated with her own. Clearly, the responses amazed her with their familiarity. Silence from the older generation and a strong desire to understand the root causes of Nazism in the younger, immigrant population. The stories told, garnered from twenty three individuals, relate the upbringing and disrupted lives of Germans, usually children, who carry the burden of their parents' origins. American children, cognizant of the Holocaust in ways the immigrant children were not, might characterize their German-born peers as "Nazis," even when it was clearly impossible. For most of the interviewees, the accusation was more mysterious than offending. Confident of their own innocence, whatever resentment arose was usually directed at their families in Germany. While this book is of great value in bringing the memories of the post-Nazi generation into view, it also poses some interesting questions. Oppressive fathers and submissive mothers aren't a uniquely German phenomenon. We aren't even clear as to whether these dominating parents are viewed as Nazis or sympathizers by Hegi's subjects. The only common theme, unique among immigrants to America, is the Holocaust. Some wonder how "normal" people could have engaged in such barbarity, asking themselves how they would have reacted had they been aware of the circumstances. Hegi, as investigative journalist in this book, is careful to avoid judgment. But the subjects raising these questions pose another: how did they view injustices in their adopted country. Few current prejudices are related in the interviews. One man admits to discomfort at seeing the "Dots;" South Asians "who "smell bad" and "never offer you a fair profit." The reader cannot help but wonder how these people reacted to the protest movements of the 1960s. Did they react to racial hatred in America with quiet acceptance as their parents had done in Germany? Unlike Germany, the violent reaction to protest was visible on any news channel in America. Did they object to America's most controversial war, or support it? One is left with the impression that these exiles comprised part of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" and that they, like the parents they admonish, remained equally silent when confronted by issues of moral weight. What Hegi has done is document again the universal that ethical values remain the province of those who stand to be counted. They are, after all, no more or less than human.
Rating:
Summary: "Tell me about your life . . ."
Review: "We are not political." This assertion by the German family hosting the senior judge in the 1961 film Judgment At Nuremberg typifies the prevailing attitude of the parents of Hegi's subjects. It lies at the foundation of the "great silence" experienced by Ursula Hegi and other children who had to come to America to discover the Holocaust. Hegi and her peers grew up in a vacuum of information about the Nazi years. Realization came as a shock, disillusioning some, generating anger and resentment in others. But as Hegi's subjects relate, few cast off their roots. Some made pilgrimages to the sites of the Nazi crimes. Others sought understanding from parents who kept them in ignorance. Assembling a collection of interviews with her counterparts, Hegi gives us their viewpoints, life histories and introspections of their pasts. It's a unique and worthy effort. In trying to reveal the present feelings of German children who came to America, Hegi undertook to understand for herself why Germans remained reticent about the Nazi years. She delved into people's lives through the interviews, asking them to examine their own feelings to see how they equated with her own. Clearly, the responses amazed her with their familiarity. Silence from the older generation and a strong desire to understand the root causes of Nazism in the younger, immigrant population. The stories told, garnered from twenty three individuals, relate the upbringing and disrupted lives of Germans, usually children, who carry the burden of their parents' origins. American children, cognizant of the Holocaust in ways the immigrant children were not, might characterize their German-born peers as "Nazis," even when it was clearly impossible. For most of the interviewees, the accusation was more mysterious than offending. Confident of their own innocence, whatever resentment arose was usually directed at their families in Germany. While this book is of great value in bringing the memories of the post-Nazi generation into view, it also poses some interesting questions. Oppressive fathers and submissive mothers aren't a uniquely German phenomenon. We aren't even clear as to whether these dominating parents are viewed as Nazis or sympathizers by Hegi's subjects. The only common theme, unique among immigrants to America, is the Holocaust. Some wonder how "normal" people could have engaged in such barbarity, asking themselves how they would have reacted had they been aware of the circumstances. Hegi, as investigative journalist in this book, is careful to avoid judgment. But the subjects raising these questions pose another: how did they view injustices in their adopted country. Few current prejudices are related in the interviews. One man admits to discomfort at seeing the "Dots;" South Asians "who "smell bad" and "never offer you a fair profit." The reader cannot help but wonder how these people reacted to the protest movements of the 1960s. Did they react to racial hatred in America with quiet acceptance as their parents had done in Germany? Unlike Germany, the violent reaction to protest was visible on any news channel in America. Did they object to America's most controversial war, or support it? One is left with the impression that these exiles comprised part of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority" and that they, like the parents they admonish, remained equally silent when confronted by issues of moral weight. What Hegi has done is document again the universal that ethical values remain the province of those who stand to be counted. They are, after all, no more or less than human.
Rating: 
Summary: Ancestral guilt often evokes empathy for the Other.
Review: As the High Holy Days approach and that this is the month of Elul, the month of repentance, I would like to recommend this book to anyone who thinks that post war Germans don't care. In reading this book I am reminded of Peter Sichrovsky's seminal work "Born Guilty: Children of Nazi Families" (New York: Basic Books, 1988.) Both works attempt to uncover the apathy felt by many persons born in Germany from the 1930's to the present; for who can appreciate the gravity of being German other than those born thus?
In reading Ms. Hegi's own account I was brought to a deeper awareness that without Ethics (mostly as described by Martin Buber) we are NOTHING, and where there are feelings of remorse (or guilt) over the sins of our 'fathers' (directly or collectively) there is hope for healing. The personal account of Ms. Hegi as well as the others in this book should provide the reader with a sense that there is hope even for the most determined and stiff-necked retractor or denier of the autrocities committed by "average" Germans during the war; the truth is there WERE NO "average" or naive "volk" during the period of National Socialism in Germany and the guilt of those born during its heyday and aftermath reflect as much in their stories, either by confronting the complicity of parents or relatives, or by those relatives or parents denying any knowledge of what Hitler stood for, or what Hitler meant when he described the "purity of the Aryan race" and the "vermin" he sought to elliminate from the face of the earth; and the persons interviewed, the children of the followers of Hitler's ideology, reflect what being brought up under such a veil of bigotry meant and the impact is has or had upon their respective lives.
Ms. Hegi's book does wonderful service to Buber's idea of the "Other," for in confronting the "Other" as OTHER she has prompted her subjects to confront their past and to learn (and possibly grow) from it. To learn that no one is immune from the bigotry and hatred, and that which Hitler and the Nazi party stood for was the basest form of bigotry and hatred experienced in this Century.
Therefore, I would recommend this book to everyone, but especially to those who do not understand or appreciate what it means to be German in the post-modern, Auschwitz sensitized world. Ms. Hegi deserves a Pulitzer Prize for her daring and laudatory effort to address her own, and other's germanic past. She has succeeded in encountering the Other and of finding redemption within their eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting for those of Hegi's generation
Review: At first I also thought this was another "guilt trip" - something the present generation of young people in Germany have resolutely turned their back on, probably to the relief of much of the rest of the world. But, as a German born in Germany towards the end of the war and leaving to come to America just before I turned four (where the banks of the Mississippi in Minnesota after bombed-out Berlin were Paradise Found despite loss and dislocation), I found the commentary and the interviews fascinating. They were able to stir up long-compartmentalized memories of what such an origin at such a time meant and continues to mean for those of us who "escaped" into a better world. Knowing more fully from these interviews that others of my generation share memories, traumas, repressions and longings which had mostly been "silenced" by the new world, and being able to understand them as specifically shaped by our being the children and survivors of families torn apart by the war, and by the pressures of being German in the post-war world, has been illuminating, clarifying, and in a strange way reassuring: it IS possible to confront, face this legacy rather than simply trying to ignore it. Read the book if you too are of this generation and background; and do not expect it to resonate much if you are not.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding both sides of the story
Review: During these troubling times this is a must read. It helps in understanding the point of view of the race that is being discriminated against. It gives me more compassion for people living in America that look different from us, yet are and feel loyalty to this great country. After the Sept. 11th tragedy I must admit I felt uncomfortable around mid eastern people, however now I know how wrong it is to judge anyone without knowing the whole story. These stories have enlightened me, I feel empathy towards the characters in this book.
Rating:
Summary: very important book
Review: I wrote my senior thesis on German daily life during World War Two. This book confirms all that I found and reiterates words spoken by people I intervied. The voices are honest and sincere. This book represents a significant contribution to the history of World War Two. We can not "remember" if we do not understand.
Rating:
Summary: Very enlightening book.
Review: It was very interesting to read of the different views of German Americans regarding WWII. As a Jew, I found it enlightening. However, it didn't change my previous views.
Rating:
Summary: An "easy" read that challenges us to look at hard issues
Review: Reading "Tearing the Silence" is part of my journey to achieve some level of peace and acceptance of who I am--a "late born" German, whose family immigrated to the US in 1953, when I was 8 years old. For years I have struggled with how a doctrine of hate and genocide could become accepted in a land that gave us Beethoven, Schiller and Goethe. As was the experience of many in the book, our family didn't discuss the holocaust. As adults, my brother and I started our own search for understanding, Chris approaching it from the religious perspective...the role of the church in the resistance...and the colloboration with Hitler. I took the humanistic path, reading books such as "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl and visiting museums and concentration camps. Nothing helped me understand what could cause such a complete breakdown of religious, moral and ethical values. How often I thought: Why didn't my parents DO something about it. They are decent human beings. How could they let it go on? Did they really "not know?" In reading "Tearing the Silence" it helped me understand that my brother and I are part of a larger group who share similar experiences and who feel that same shame, but that it is also our generation that must be vigilant not to let the impact of these dark events be mitigated by time. I now no longer constantly think "Why didn't my parents...." I now think "What would I have done? Would I have had the strength of my moral convictions to put my life and my family's life on the line? What can I do now to be a peacemaker and healer in this world?" Dietrich Bonhoffer, the great German Theologian, said, when asked if he would resist swearing allegiance to Hitler as part of his duties as a Lutheran Minister "I pray I will find the courage to resist." That too is my prayer if my convictions are ever tested. In the meantime, I recommend this book to those who share my background or those living with us....so you can better understand the guilt and shame we carry (as we must). My only disappointment was that Ms Hegi generally selected the experiences of people whose parents were very violent, cruel, disfunctional and abusive. I don't believe that represents German parenthood, unless my own family experience is unique. Our German parents were loving, suportive of us and each other, and I owe much of who I am today to their personal sacrifices.
Rating:
Summary: On being German in post-war America
Review: Tearing the Silence is one of the most important books that I have read, as I am the child of parents who grew up in the Third Reich. It was a truly rewarding experience reading this book and it helped me understand how others in my situation have been affected by the Nazi aspect of their German heritage. If I remember correctly, though, the author really only interviewed people of the "2nd Generation" born shorty after the war; there are, however, people like myself who were born somewhat later and had to come to terms with their heritage during the 1980s rather than the 1960s. The inclusion of one or two interviews with people in this situation would have added considerably to the book.
Rating:
Summary: On being German in post-war America
Review: Tearing the Silence is one of the most important books that I have read, as I am the child of parents who grew up in the Third Reich. It was a truly rewarding experience reading this book and it helped me understand how others in my situation have been affected by the Nazi aspect of their German heritage. If I remember correctly, though, the author really only interviewed people of the "2nd Generation" born shorty after the war; there are, however, people like myself who were born somewhat later and had to come to terms with their heritage during the 1980s rather than the 1960s. The inclusion of one or two interviews with people in this situation would have added considerably to the book.
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