{"product_id":"the-pendulum-a-granddaughters-search-for-her-familys-forbidden-nazi-past-9781538111932","title":"The Pendulum: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Forbidden Nazi Past","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis powerful memoir traces Brazilian-born American Julie Lindahl’s journey to uncover her grandparents’ roles in the Third Reich as she is driven to understand how and why they became members of Hitler’s elite, the SS. Out of the unbearable heart of the story—the unclaimed guilt that devours a family through the generations—emerges an unflinching will to learn the truth. In a remarkable six-year journey through Germany, Poland, Paraguay, and Brazil, Julie uncovers, among many other discoveries, that her grandfather had been a fanatic member of the SS since 1934. During World War II, he was responsible for enslavement and torture and was complicit in the murder of the local population on the large estates he oversaw in occupied Poland. He eventually fled to South America to evade a new wave of war-crimes trials. The pendulum used by Julie’s grandmother to divine good from bad and true from false becomes a symbol for the elusiveness of truth and morality, but also for the false securities we cling to when we become unmoored. As Julie delves deeper into the abyss of her family’s secret, discovering history anew, one precarious step at a time, the compassion of strangers is a growing force that transforms her world and the way that she sees her family—and herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA book of immense courage, written with elegance and great power. -- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street\u003cbr\u003eAn extraordinary meditation on evil and complicity, and on the role future generations play when trying to uncover a perfidious past. With a brilliant prose that often reads as poetry, Julie Lindahl explores and discovers her family’s Nazi past. A narrative that is deeply moving as well as informative in its history. -- Marjorie Agosin, Wellesley College; author of I Lived in Butterfly Hill\u003cbr\u003eJulie Lindahl has a kind of courage that is rarely found. Her truthfulness is a rigorous and raw inquiry into history through her own ancestry. She avoids the quick gloss and embraces the hard work of holding her family’s intergenerational traumas up to the light. What shines through is difficult, but loving. The story is horrible and yet filled with possibility. While her writing is beautiful and effortless, the subject she carries is anything but. I deeply respect her willingness to face the cultural complexity that lives in her own skin. -- Nora Bateson, author of Small Arcs of Larger Circles; award-winning filmmaker of “An Ecology of Mind”\u003cbr\u003eI opened The Pendulum and immediately found myself drawn into it. As a historian, I often wondered how we could profit from the determined pursuit of haunted family stories by descendants of individual perpetrators. Here’s the breathtaking answer. -- Jochen Böhler, Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena\u003cbr\u003eIn the literature of the Holocaust, the story of the perpetrator is rarely told from ‘the inside.’ Julie Lindahl has taken on this painstaking task when she tells us the story of her family. It is written from the heart but has outstanding literary qualities—a rare but phenomenal combination. The result is a very important book that is difficult to put down before you reach the end. -- Stefan Einhorn, Karolinska Institute; author of The Art of Being Kind\u003cbr\u003eOutstanding insights into the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust—based on the perspective of both perpetrators and their descendants. The book is indispensable for anyone who wants to see the extent and complexity of the lasting influence of war, not only in its own time but also for future generations. -- Eskil Franck, Uppsala University; Former Director, The Living History Forum\u003cbr\u003eA powerful book about good and evil that has become even more important in today’s climate of mounting far-right extremism and alternative facts. -- Hédi Fried, author, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor\u003cbr\u003eI have never read a book as perceptive, intuitive, and courageous as Julie Lindahl’s memoir. She is the first of her generation to describe the reverberations of that terrible Darwinism, that ‘Herrenmensch’ orientation, and its overwhelming consequences so profoundly. I thank her with all my heart. -- Gerhard Hoch, theologian and historian of Nazism in Schleswig-Holstein\u003cbr\u003eAn intimate investigation into family truth and lies, shame and grief, anger and indignation. Unfolding like a mystery novel with the very highest stakes, it not only looks with honesty and wisdom at the past but purposefully asks what we're going to make of it for the future. The brilliance and novelty of Lindahl's courageous journey lies in situating her own family history within our collective experience and common pain, thereby reawakening our shared duty to break the silence and go make things better. -- Derek B. Miller, internationally bestselling author of Norwegian by Night\u003cbr\u003eAs we travel with Julie Lindahl, we gain a deeper capacity for justice, compassion and commitment to confront today’s unthinkable evils. Her investigation and the publication of her excruciating family history have come at a high personal cost—but also with the joy of discovering long-lost relatives and building a global family of survivors and readers. We all are now deeply indebted to her. -- Piroska Nagy-Mohacsi, Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics\u003cbr\u003eThe Nazi past casts long shadows and leaves many traumatized to this day. Julie Lindahl digs deep into her own family history to uncover dark secrets dating back to the Holocaust. The Pendulum is a deeply engaging and captivating human search for answers, atonement, and closure. -- Gerald J. Steinacher, University of Nebraska, author of Nazis on the Run\u003cbr\u003eA powerful, painfully human, and honest work of words and heart...Beautiful in the writing sense, horrific in reflection upon all the lives. -- James Wine, American poet, writer, and filmmaker\u003cbr\u003eThe Pendulum is an extraordinary and very timely book. Julie Lindahl keeps the reader deeply engaged with her clear and poetic voice. Reading this book is like reading a  mystery story as the reader is experiencing the urgency of the search for truth; we are with her as she is turning over one stone after another, each revealing the undeniable cruelty that had torn her family apart. This is a journey in which every subtle emotional shift is described with great fidelity. The reader will have great appreciation for Lindahl’s fearless introspection and her most engaging way of sharing her insights with us. -- Anna Ornstein, Holocaust survivor and professor emerita of child psychiatry, University of Cincinnati\u003cbr\u003eThis deeply impressive book is relentlessly honest and raises many pertinent questions about the aftermath of trauma, who we are in relation to the past, and the ways in which destructive ideologies and bigotry can affect the next generation and must be dealt with. It gave my students an understanding of shame legacies and how they can be unpacked with sincerity and compassion. -- Nancy Harrowitz, Director of Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Boston University\u003cbr\u003eA clear-sighted and courageous reckoning with a family's problematic legacy and the trauma that has affected it for generations. The story raises interesting questions about memory, legacy and reconciliation. The language is well crafted with compelling momentum, and the personal portraits are nuanced and credible. The Pendulum is a worthy, at times challenging, read about guilt, trauma, and the difficulty of reconciling with the past. -- BTJ (Swedish Library Service)\u003cbr\u003eIn a work a lifetime in the making, [Lindahl] writes of her awakening to the pieces missing in her history and the drive that led her to ask difficult questions about her grandparents and their roles in the Nazi SS . . . From discovering unknown family in South America to accepting that wounds were necessary to open in order to heal, Lindahl shows how generations can suffer silence and shame throughout the years, and the importance of coming to terms with the truth in order to find closure. This powerful work reveals how people adversely impacted by the past persevere, even while living alongside the perpetrators who still carry prejudice. * Library Journal *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments  Prologue  Part I: “Quiet Is Best” Chapter 1: Sweden, 2015  Chapter 2: West Germany, 1989  Chapter 3: The United Kingdom, 1990  Chapter 4: Germany, 1997  Chapter 5: Germany, 2010  Chapter 6: Germany, 2012  Chapter 7: Germany, 2012  Chapter 8: Poland, 2012  Chapter 9: Germany, 2013  Chapter 10: Germany, 2013  Chapter 11: Poland, 2013  Chapter 12: Auschwitz, 2013  Chapter 13: Bosnia Herzegovina, 2014 Part II: The Red Dust Chapter 14: Sweden, June 2015 Chapter 15: Latin America, February 2016  Chapter 16: Asuncion, February 2016  Chapter 17: Asuncion, February 2016  Chapter 18: Asuncion, March 2016  Chapter 19: Asuncion, March 2016  Chapter 20: Sao Paulo, March 2016  Chapter 21: Campo Grande, March 2016  Chapter 22: Campo Grande, March 2016  Chapter 23: Maracaju, March 2016  Chapter 24: Maracaju, March 2016  Chapter 25: Brasilia, March 2016  Chapter 26: Stockholm, May 2017  Suggested Reading  About the Author","brand":"Rowman \u0026 Littlefield","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53188411556183,"sku":"9781538111932","price":22.8,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-pendulum-a-granddaughters-search-for-her-familys-forbidden-nazi-past-9781538111932","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}