Category: Intergenerational trauma

Following Joan… Part Three

angela findlay6 Comments

(If you are joining Joan’s story now, you might want to read Following Joan… Parts One and Two first.) 

‘Do you think she jumped… or did she fall?’

It’s 2020 and I am sitting opposite my uncle, a grandfather clock tick-tocking the present into the past.

That question has always lingered around the name of my Great Great Aunt Joan. She was said to have been troubled, never having recovered from the death of her beloved older brother, Gerald, killed at Gallipoli in the First World War. Ill health had dogged her. And as another war loomed on the horizon, perhaps she could not bear to witness more loss. 

I sometimes wish I could type ‘Joan Legge’ into the search box of my life’s hard drive to locate the exact moment her story began to intrigue me. Perhaps it was a conversation with my grandmother, Joan’s niece. Both she and her younger sister had believed, independently, that Joan would not return from her trip to the Himalayas in 1939. Their mother was said to have ‘the gift’ – an unfathomable intuition, a form of knowing that slips past reason. 

That fascinated me, for even as a child I sensed there were hidden channels of communication and knowledge beneath the surface of ordinary life. Perhaps their foreboding of no return planted the idea that Joan’s death had been deliberate.

Joan 1905

Or maybe it came from the anecdotes I gleaned over time from my father and uncle about this eccentric spinster who, after Gerald’s death, cast off the frills and trappings of aristocracy and privilege to forge a life of farming, service and adventure. A life that ended in solitude, in a remote valley half a world away. 

Some lives close with a sense of completeness, even peace. Death may be welcomed after a struggle with illness or the slow wear of age. Others remain unfinished, wrapped in mystery, unresolved, tugging at the conscience of descendants like a child clutching at its mother’s apron strings. 

Joan’s sudden death was of that latter kind. It sent shock waves through the generations, softening with distance into small ripples. Even now they lap at the shores of my own soul. 

Map of the Valley of Flowers, the site of Joan’s camp, death & grave marked in red
©Staffordshire History Centre

It was only last year, travelling to the Valley of Flowers with three of Joan’s descendants, that I fully grasped the scale of her courage. And the violence of her end. The monsoon rains offered us just a fleeting glimpse of the place she fell, its position traced on a map sketched in the days after her death. Yet it was enough to shatter the gentler image I had long created of her tumbling down a wooded slope. The truth was starker. Joan had fallen clean over the edge of a sheer granite cliff.

Her fall haunts me. Those unthinkable seconds of awareness, knowing you are hurtling toward your end. How different from a death that comes inch by inch, offering time to prepare, to resist, to rage, or to reconcile. In July 2024, when I left the Valley of Flowers and Joan’s remote grave, a sudden grief overwhelmed me, buckling my legs and landing me in a pile of donkey droppings. Yet Joan’s own words leave no room for doubt. Her diaries brimmed with excitement for the months ahead, with awe for the surrounding peaks, and with delight in her adventure. She did not choose death. She was very much alive.

So why does her story touch me so deeply? Why not my great grandmother, killed in a car crash?  Why not my grandfather, the ‘muck and magic man’, pioneer of organic farming? Why Joan? And why me – the only one in the family drawn, again and again, to the lives behind us rather than those unfolding ahead? Is it because I have no children to anchor my gaze forward? Or is it that I have no children precisely because the voices behind me insisted on my attention?

Gerald (far left), Joan’s father (seated left), Joan (centre) and others, 1907

Perhaps neither, or both. What I do know is that the dead have enriched my life. And in honouring them, in breaking the silence of the unspoken, in unravelling the mysteries and untangling the knots they left behind, I believe their presence has enriched the lives of others’ too. 

Through my recent studies in Family Constellations, I have increasingly come to experience life as a river, flowing on with or without us. We step into its current for longer or shorter spans, mingling in the same waters where our predecessors once moved. What matters is not the length of time, but the resonance we leave behind. Not quantity, but quality.

Birth is the one beginning we all share. But our endings are as varied as our lives. Accident, chance, destiny, choice… no one can know death’s moment or manner, only its inevitability.

So was Joan’s death a tragedy as her obituaries mourned? Or was it a brilliant ending to a life lived fully right into its final breath? 

Draft for Joan’s eulogy by her sister: ‘If in another world kindred spirits dwell together there Joan & her brother Gerald will be found, I think, among a happy throng of pioneers and explorers of all ages. Courage, endurance and an indomitable will were possessed by this devoted brother and sister and both lie buried in a mountain grave & as one of her friends wrote, ‘”already halfway to Heaven”. She started on her greatest hazardous adventure joyfully and she died as she had lived, unafraid – ‘

Joan and Gerald, 1907

I dedicate this blog to my dear friend in Australia, Tas. Over the past six years, corticobasal syndrome (CBS) has been claiming his body, his movement, his speech. And yet his spirit, his humour, his integrity and his enduring delight in friends, family and life itself still blaze. To know him is both an inspiration and a gift I deeply treasure.  

Further details of my exhibition / event on Joan will follow in my next Blog.  

A Pope, a Rabbi and an 80-year-old Victory 

angela findlay3 Comments

April saw the death of the widely loved Pope Francis, the Jewish festival of Passover, and the gradual build-up to the 80th Anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe) in May. An unusual trio of events, yet radio coverage of all three wove threads of reflection into the tapestry of this blog. 

Compassion was central to Pope Francis’s papacy – particularly towards those who are rejected or marginalised. He often spoke about the importance of honouring and never abandoning our grandparents. “If you want to be a sign of hope, go and talk to your grandfather,” he was quoted as saying. They remind us that we share the same heritage, link us to “the beauty of being part of a much larger history… a loving plan [that] is greater than we are.” He also had the humility to say “I am a sinner,” which makes me wonder where that leaves the rest of us!

In a recent Radio 4 Thought for the Day  (at 1:47:45), Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis described Passover as the ‘Festival of Questions;’ a time to ask, to probe, to test assumptions, refine our understanding and uncover the truth. 

If we try to apply the guidance of both spiritual leaders to the forthcoming celebrations of VE Day on 8th May, we may find ourselves asking how the grandchildren of the ‘losers’ of WWII – many of whom had been perpetrators or complicit in Nazi atrocities – might ‘honour’ their grandfathers. How do you love – should you even try to love – someone who has acted immorally, abhorrently, even if those acts were sanctioned or ordered by a higher authority and deemed the right thing to do for Volk and country?

I’m all too aware how unfashionable, controversial and even provocative it is to suggest we spare a thought for the perpetrators. But in keeping with the spirit of my triangle, I am going to ask you to do just that. Many people, from all sides of the conflict, are quick to judge, blame and damn the Wehrmacht soldiers and SS as an indiscriminate mob of ‘monsters’, all morally inferior and wholly undeserving of being remembered. It’s completely understandable. But where does that leave their children and grandchildren? What happens when we continue to draw a line between the ‘good us’ and ‘bad them’, a distinction that may have served its time but no longer helps us move forward? Isn’t one of the most crucial lessons of this horrific chapter in history to recognise that most perpetrators were not monsters, but ordinary people… like you and me… who, through a slow drift of compromise, small decisions and ill judgements became capable of unimaginably heinous crimes? 

Eighty years on, with more than 88% of the German population having been born after the war’s end and a further 11% still children at the time, it’s difficult to place ‘guilt’ for the Holocaust on the Germans of today. After all, people cannot be guilty of things they themselves didn’t do. Yet, like many descendants of Holocaust victims and survivors, some non-Jewish Germans born in the decades after the war still wrestle, often unknowingly, with the unresolved trauma and guilt passed down from their parents or grandparents. They carry what Eva Hoffman aptly described as “the scars without the wound” – invisible wounds that silently shape their internal world and influence their actions in the external world. 

Without detracting anything from the horrors and suffering of the victims, can we imagine for a moment how it might be for post-war generations of Germans to live with legacies of silence, cover-ups, not-knowing, judgement, exclusion, blame or shame in relation to their roots? Mistrusting family stories. Wondering who knew and who did what. What impact does this have on individuals, families, societies, nations and ultimately, the wider world? How can one best deal with such a profound inheritance?

Primo Levi – who, as a Holocaust survivor had every right to think the opposite – declared that collective guilt does not exist. To think that it does is a relapse into Nazi ideology. Both he and Hannah Arendt made a powerful claim: “We are all to blame” for what happened. Collective responsibility is what matters. And that involves understanding how atrocities occur both in society and within the individual. How we become complicit. 

The roots of Nazism found fertile soil in the humiliation wrought by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the deeply resented ‘guilt clause’ that placed full blame for WW1 solely on Germany’s shoulders. Applying a similar dynamic to today, could there be a connection between this historical pattern and the rise of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), Germany’s nationalist far-right party — a movement fuelled in part by a desire to reassert national pride and, as encouraged by figures like Elon Musk, to move beyond what they perceive as an excessive “focus on Nazi guilt”?

The 2019 survey previously cited revealed that few Germans actually feel guilt and 70% (including 87% of AfD voters) believe their country has now sufficiently atoned for the actions of the Nazi regime. Another source revealed that 75% of young Germans (erroneously) believe they come from families of resistors, while 25% can’t name a single concentration camp or ghetto. As the number of living contemporary witnesses dwindles, disinformation, denial and delusions are spreading. With them, the sense of responsibility risks disappearing too – a deeply worrying and dangerous trend. Knowing firsthand the insidiously destructive effects of being shamed for a familial association with the Nazi era, I can understand how, eighty years on, rejecting any semblance of inherited guilt might feel like a healthy response. After all, who among us wants to feel terminally tainted by the wrongdoings of their forebears? Who wants to have to cut off their roots?

The marriage of my parents in March 1962

I feel fortunate that, while living in England with my German heritage was at times challenging, my parents and their families modelled true reconciliation throughout my life. My British father and German mother married just 17 years after the Second World War ended. Both their families had suffered and lost loved ones and/or homes under the others’ military objectives. Yet both found the courage to drop into their hearts and overcome division and enmity. And that, to me, is where the solution lies: in our hearts.

Patriotism is hollow if it is based only on pride and honour. Shame and conscience lead to a deeper bond. Seeing the world in binaries – in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them, good and bad, right and wrong – shuts down love. Reconciliation becomes impossible. As Britain celebrates its triumph over the evil forces, let us also remember we were not all good and they all bad. Among other short-comings, we too were guilty of antisemitism and of failing to help the Jews more. 

In another recent Thought for the Day, Rhidian Brook warned, “If you can’t see the other side’s humanity, you’ve lost.” 

My 80th Anniversary VE Day wish, therefore, as both a British and German citizen, is for us to follow the example set by the late Pope and Chief Rabbi: to think, to probe, to get uncomfortable, and to find compassion for individuals among the rejected and ostracised.

Eighty years on, might this be the moment to create new rituals of peacekeeping and unity? Without dampening the spirit of national joy, how can we include – and stand hand-in-hand with – our contemporary German friends in celebrations of peace, rather than reinforce historical divides?

Can we develop broader, more expansive narratives that encourage younger generations of Germans to face the difficult and painful truths of their families’ histories and to assume responsibility, not for what was done, but for what is still to be done? Can we remain vigilant against resting on any imagined moral high ground, against believing we would have undoubtedly been resistors and heroes under the Nazi regime? And can we instead recognise how thin the ice of democracy is becoming once again, and how difficult it is, even now, to change the course of history?

Events coming up:

Friday 2nd May, 12-1pm 
The Second World War 80 years on: Is Remembrance Working? 
Angela Findlay and Henry Montgomery In Conversation
National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT and ONLINE
80 years on from the German surrender to the Allies, Henry Montgomery, grandson of Field Marshal Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery and Angela Findlay, granddaughter of General Karl von Graffen of the German Wehrmacht will reflect on their grandfathers’ roles and actions in WW2 and discuss the differences in the histories, legacies and remembrance cultures of the victors and the losers and how Remembrance can remain meaningful and effective for younger generations. 
Info and tickets (free) here. 

Thursday 8th May, 18.00 – 19.30 
Im Schatten Meines Großvaters / In My Grandfather’s Shadow
Vortrag und Gespräch / Lecture and Conversation 
Marktkirche, Hanns-Lilje-Platz, 30159 Hannover, Germany

Thursday 15th May, 17.00 – 19.00 (UK time)   43. Gesprächslabor, PAKH: The Study Group on Intergenerational Consequences of the Holocaust (ONLINE)? Drawing on my own experiences outlined in my book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow, we will be discussing how such a destructive legacy can be transformed into constructive, reconciliatory approaches and positive actions. More info here: https://www.pakh.de/event/gespraechslabor-40/  

Buy or read reviews on my book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow, here

Question to self: Is speaking out still the right thing to do?

angela findlay3 Comments

If you haven’t yet seen Jesse Eisenberg’s latest film, ‘A Real Pain,’ I can only urge you to do so. Starring himself and Kieran Culkin [youngest son in Succession!], the pair play two estranged cousins who travel to Poland to fulfil the wish of their recently deceased, concentration camp survivor grandmother for them to visit her former home. It’s essentially a road movie and extremely funny. But the context of the Holocaust and the attempts of third-generation Americans to come to terms with it, makes it also profoundly moving, thought-provoking and important. 

Millions of people world-wide are still grappling with the aftermath of those appalling years of Nazi rule. More, rather than fewer, stories of survivors and first-hand witnesses are coming to light told by descendants who have finally found ways to articulate what their forebears couldn’t. My own, In My Grandfather’s Shadow, published in 2022, is testament to the painful process of peeling back the layers of incredulity in which the extremes of both cruelty and suffering are wrapped. For many, it is justifiable to judge or blame ordinary Germans for not speaking out or revolting against the wrongness of what was happening in clear sight. Despite acknowledging their justified fears, it would have been the right thing to do.

As we approach Holocaust Memorial Day marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces in 1945, we are asked to remember the horrific consequences of the crimes that, in part, were enabled because people did not speak out. We will once again repeat the heartfelt ‘Never Again’ that has been chanted like a mantra over the decades. But is it enough?

“Voting right-wing is so 1933”

Across the globe, the roots and shoots of far-right policies are taking hold with renewed vigour. In highly vigilant Germany, ‘Voting right-wing is so 1933’ is a campaign slogan for left-wingers. But calling out discrimination and anti-immigrant policies, becoming an ‘upstander’ rather than a bystander has become increasingly perilous, even a danger to life. I wonder how Bishop Mariann Budde’s recent controversial sermon at the inaugural prayer service at Washington National Cathedral will play out. Referencing immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals among others, she calmly but directly asked President Trump “to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.” Will she be cancelled, trolled, fired, discreetly removed from her post? So far she is refusing to apologise for speaking her truth. Was it brave, wise, right? Or, as he and his supporters claim, ‘nasty, woke, inappropriate’ and she a “Radical left hard line Trump hater”? Bizarre as it sounds, by seeking a path of compassion, did she inadvertently shame and dent an ego as big as the world?

As someone with (non-Jewish) German roots, I feel like it is both in my DNA and a conscious personal responsibility to speak out in the face of a perceived injustice or wrongdoing. However, I am beginning to feel an even stronger impulse. In these times of widespread latent and reactive vitriol and rage, I have started to listen into the other side’s point of view rather than – or at least before(!) – slating it. To create a tiny pause, a space between the attack and counter-attack model so many discussions rapidly descend into. It’s like stepping back from an easel when you have been immersed in some detail in order to see the whole picture. For when we speak out against something with conviction but without seeing the back story behind the other’s conviction, we are basically assuming a moral and intellectual high-ground that imparts the message that ‘they’ are wrong (inferior) and ‘we’ are right? This never goes well! Trump’s return to the White House proves that.

Decades of trying to comprehend the behaviour of ordinary Germans eighty or ninety years ago have revealed to me that many of them won’t have been so different to many of us today, i.e. more concerned with their own lives – milking cows, running businesses, keeping children warm and fed – than politics. Looking away, keeping stumm becomes a basic survival tactic. But the outrage humans feel in the face of endless discrimination, inequality, injustice, harm can rapidly turn to despondency and disaffection when we realise we can do little more than sign a petition or share a rant on social media or among friends. Eventually we might become numb, at worst immune to the wrongdoing. I know that I personally read, watch and listen to the news far less than I used to because the drip-feed of madness, badness and sadness feels toxic and induces inertia. I have no idea if this is maturity, complacency, disheartenment, a nauseating lack of humour or an equally nauseating sense of self-righteousness, but I have lost some of my more outspoken tendencies and anger at the world and replaced them with something that is hopefully more productive but still relevant to these times.

My prison work showed me that the most valuable action I could offer prisoners was to listen and to hear them. Not just their stories, excuses and justifications, but what came before. The drivers of their behaviour. With their defences down, trust, compassion and understanding could grow. Attitudes and actions quietly changed without them being shown to be wrong.

I am not sure if this is the right way to go in general life. The story of the Zen / Chinese Farmer comes to mind with its ‘We’ll see…’

It’s certainly not a quick-fix solution. But maybe it’s a tiny antidote to the constant stoking of anger? A drop towards the creation of a kinder world in which wider discourse and a greater tolerance of difference are possible. And ‘Never Again’ regains its urgency and weight. 

A few links to that don’t necessarily reflect my views, but are accessible sources to pursue your own research.

A Real Pain Review

A Real Pain Trailer

Germany’s present is not Germany’s past by Katya Hoyer

Who is Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop who angered Trump with inaugural sermon?

‘I am not going to apologise’: The Bishop who confronted Trump speaks out

Back to Jail, this time with a book not a paintbrush… 

angela findlay8 Comments

There was something deeply familiar about the process of entering HMP Wandsworth last week. The first time I was there was in 2003 in my role as Arts Coordinator for the London-based Koestler Arts. I had founded the Learning to Learn through the Arts scheme a year earlier and was co-facilitating a 4-week dance and art project called Beyond Words.

HMP Wandsworth, London

The aim was to bring dance and painting together to create a non-verbal language through which prisoners could express themselves. Each day was a mixture of individual and group exercises that saw the men clambering over tables and chairs to dissolve the formalities of a traditional classroom or splattering paint on paper with Expressionist vigour. Both approaches eventually led to solo multi-media performances and the development of communication skills, camaraderie, trust and sensitivity within the group.

Now, twenty years later, I was re-entering HMP Wandsworth, but this time in the wholly verbal capacity as author of In My Grandfather’s Shadow.

For people who haven’t experienced it, entering a prison can seem synonymous with entering hell. And for many, it probably is. This blog therefore feels unintentionally apposite to Good Friday, the day in the Christian calendar that signifies the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his descension into hell. We have grounds for this picture of infernal misery from exposure to BBC programmes such as Prisoner,   Time,  Disclosure: Prisons on the brink.  Or five series of Prison Break. But my visit couldn’t have felt further from those dark scenes. 

The beautifully organised event was the result of a brilliant collaboration between the Wandsworth Prison Library team and the charities Give a Book and Prison Reading Group (PRG). Generous book donations came from Penguin Transworld and Radio Wano, the prison’s in-house radio station, took care of publicity. I knew from experience how difficult arranging such events can be. Months of dialogue and organisation can be kiboshed by any number of unforeseen occurrences, or simply by time-poor officers’ inability to deliver the prisoners to the room.  

Not on this occasion though. Thirty-five men, mostly already seated, some with copies of my book on their laps, awaited us as we took our seats in front of a display of hardback copies that rivalled any book festival’s. Unlike my regular illustrated talks in which a series of images ties me to a certain chronology of thought, I was able to speak freely, engaging the antennae grown over years working ‘inside’ to gauge the interests and sensitivities of my audience. As I spoke into the men’s intense attention, I sensed cogs turning in brains as they connected my words to their personal situations. So many of my book’s themes speak to their experiences of trauma, addiction, conflict, violence, guilt, shame, depression, intergenerational family legacies… 

Like a muscle memory, my heart opened as they began to engage verbally, asking questions and contributing informed opinions and philosophies of their own to mine. One of the librarians said to me afterwards, ‘They are so deep.’ And yes, their questions dived in at the deep end, not dissimilar to audiences in Germany. Intelligent. Philosophical. They know darkness. And they recognise how you get there. What I, as always, hoped to show was a way out.

At one point, as I related how I had felt ‘at home’ in prison as a young woman, a prisoner suggested that it may have been because they are at the bottom. ‘We are the bottom of society.’ He was right. That is the perception of many. Shame is the ultimate bottom dweller of emotions. And in feeling shamed as a teenager for being half-German, I would have related well to those who resided at ‘the bottom’.

Comment from a prisoner at HMP Wandsworth

I cannot, however, see these men – and I say men as a generalisation because 95% of the prison population is made up of men – as genuinely being at the bottom of the human pile. It is wrong of society to simply clump them together into one unnuanced band of criminal brothers. There are of course some horrendous crimes. But each person is both individual and potentially so much more. Each has a story, a journey of how they got here. And dreams for something different.

One man revealed he had thought about writing his story but felt nobody would be interested. ‘What makes you think that?’ I enquired. ‘Because it would be too dark,’ he replied only to be refuted and encouraged by others with claims that the crime thriller is one of the most popular genres. 

Listening to and briefly meeting the prisoners at this library event didn’t appear to correspond to the prison statistics I regularly quote in my Art behind Bars talks.

A 2022 government review of reading reported: “The most recent data published by the Ministry of Justice shows that 57% of adult prisoners taking initial assessments had literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old.” There is nothing new here, but they remain shocking statistics. And yet my experiences tell me that in spite of high rates of ADHD, illiteracy, dyslexia, prisoners are far from ‘thick’ or even uneducated. They may have failed in or been excluded from mainstream education, but all too often that is because they have not received an education appropriate to their learning styles or needs. It’s an education that doesn’t recognise or value what their experiences have taught them about life.

Once the discussions were over, a long queue lined up for signed copies dedicated to names that revealed the audience’s colourful cultural mix. Many imparted tantalising snippets that hinted at reasons for their interest in my subjects… they were from Poland; they were fascinated by alternative perspectives on WW2; they now recognised how their actions might impact their children; they longed for intellectual stimulus. 

L-R: Standing: Sarah Turvey (Founder of PRG) and Mima Edye-Lindner (Director of Projects, PRG) Seated: Me, Paul Eden (Volunteer for an HMP Wandsworth Reading Group), Susanna Wadeson (Penguin Transworld)

The importance of the work of HMP Wandsworth’s Library – headed by Beverley Davies and her Senior Assistant, Hannah Pickering (who was taking the photographs) – and the work of Give a Book, PRG and their reading group volunteers plus all the Arts Projects taking place in prisons around the country cannot be underestimated. I am so grateful for and heartened by it. Traditional classroom settings are not always the way to educate people. There are other ways to inspire minds. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in Citadelle:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, don’t divide the work and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Last week’s Library Event seemed to do just that as both the below comments from the Library and Prisoner Nr. XXX reveal:

“The guys were really buzzing afterwards, and it was great that other people noticed what was going on and wanted to get involved. All the books were taken which is a real positive.”

Prison Reading Group was founded in 1999 by Jenny Hartley and Sarah Turvey. Together with the team from Give a Book and Director of Projects Mima Edye-Lindner, they delivered 5000+ books to 84 groups in 64 prisons.

If you would like to support them, please go to their websites: https://prisonreadinggroups.org.uk

Where history resides in the soil, tangibly awaiting excavation…

angela findlayLeave a comment

There was something profound about launching the German translation of my book in Germany, first in Hamburg, the city I have known and loved all my life, and then in Berlin, the epicentre of that extraordinary episode of history in which I have been immersed for over 15 years. 

In My Grandfather’s Shadow: A trauma that is talked about can better heal

I had no idea what reception it or I would receive. The audience have, after all, breathed the air of Germany’s past for decades; been shaped by it – whether they have engaged with it or not. German 20th century history is still very much alive in the present, a minefield of sensibilities and taboos through which I had to pick my way, all too aware that as a half-Brit, I always had an airlift out of the horrors. What on earth could I bring to the intensely discussed narratives?

So I was touched by how warmly I was received. How attentively people listened. How sincerely they responded, one elderly man, born in the same year as my 89-year old mother, standing up and telling the story of his childhood flight from the Soviets for the first time. The entry level of questions was so deep, so knowing, so very real. 

Unintentionally colour-coordinated with the beautiful decor of Berlin’s Literaturhaus!

As always, it was the post-talk discussions, with much needed glasses of wine in hand, that brought home to me once again the importance of talking about what is all too often buried. People expressed how completely new it was for them to hear someone talk so openly both about German soldiers and themselves. This is deliberate on my part. By baring the inner machinations of my soul and that of my grandfather, I was and am inviting people to explore theirs. By touching on taboos, exposing shame to the light of empathy and sharing the tools I developed and steps I took to release myself from the crippling weight of Germany’s Nazi legacy, I can offer hope that there is a way through. Through, not out of. For such an unprecedented past must necessarily maintain the weight of responsibility. 

As a nation, Germany continues to respond to its crimes in countless ways, not least through its counter memorial culture about which some of you may have heard me speak in my lectures. One memorial in particular chokes me up every time. It is the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe murdered under National Socialism placed right in the heart of the city between the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gates. (I mentioned it in my June BLOG on Berlin)

The central feature is a circular pond with a triangular ‘island’ on which a fresh flower is placed every day. That some official is tasked with performing this ritual intrigues me. So, after receiving permission to witness it, I joined a delightful man in uniform by the water’s edge and duly followed him into the bushes. Hidden from public view, he pulled opened a grated trap door and gestured to me to descend the precarious metal ladder and proceed along a damp corridor until I was standing directly below the retractable triangle. At 1pm precisely he pressed a button. An accordion-like black triangular pillar began to lower, folding into itself until the flower was within reach. 

I was then allowed to select and place a new flower on the triangle – a slight disappointment that for practical reasons, the flowers are no longer fresh but plastic! Then, with another push of the button, up it went to take its place in the still water for another day.

As we emerged from the bushes, a school class of pupils who had been brought to watch the ceremony approached us. The teacher had noticed me disappearing into the undergrowth and asked if I would explain who I was, what, why…etc. which I did. And, long story short, from that encounter and the interest it generated, I received an invitation to come to their school next time I am in Berlin and tell them about my story and my book!

“Truth speaks from the ground” Anne Michaels wrote in Fugitive Pieces. I have always felt this since my first visit to Berlin in 1990. I remember wandering through the recently gentrified area around Hackescher Markt excited by its contemporary art galleries but wholly unaware of its history as a Jewish quarter from which thousands of Jews were rounded up and deported. But “… as the day wore on, I became increasingly aware of an uncomfortable sensation rising inside me. Something seemed to be seeping up from the pavement through my feet and weighing down my legs. It rose further, turning my stomach hard. By the time we stopped at a café, it had reached the level of my heart, at which point it spilled out in a huge wave of sobs…” (IMGS p.153)

Maybe that is why one sculpture spoke to me so strongly at Berlin Art Week’s POSITIONS exhibition housed in the long-disused hangar of Tempelhof Airport, site of the Western allies’ 1948-49 ‘Berlin Airlift’ in response to the Soviet Blockade.

I didn’t get the name of the artist (apologies), but to me their work brilliantly, wordlessly captures what I instinctively feel about being in the unique and extraordinary city that is Berlin, where past meets present with a potency that can’t be ignored.

For NEWS of forthcoming events in England and Germany, please see my website: www.angelafindlaytalks.com

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To apologise, or not to apologise (for slavery), that is the question.

angela findlay5 Comments

I am already anticipating a deeply divided and critical response to the recent announcement that Charlie Gladstone and five members of his family, all descendants of the Victorian-era prime minister William Gladstone, are travelling to Guyana to apologise for the significant role one of their ancestors played in the slave trade. But I’d like to ask those who are cynical of such a trip to consider what the alternatives might be.

John Gladstone, William’s father, was one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies. You can read all about him in the links at the end, but basically he made a fortune as a Demerara sugar planter enslaving hundreds of Africans to work in his plantations until slavery was abolished in 1833. He then became the fifth-largest beneficiary of the £20m fund (about £16 billion today) set aside by the British government in 1837 to compensate planters for loss of income. The final instalments of this compensation were paid out in 2015.

Charlie Gladstone is roughly the same age as me and, though the ‘crimes against humanity’ perpetrated by his family member were nearly 200 years ago whereas those my German grandfather was involved in were a mere eighty, the burden of shame may well weigh as heavily. As I describe in detail in my book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow, the unresolved deeds of our forefathers remain in a family blood line, in our roots. Whether you are ignorant of or choose to engage with them, there will be an impact that needs resolution of some sort. 

Apology is one of many steps that can be taken to try to repair wrongdoing, and personally I think it is good that people such as those in the group Heirs of Slavery, including David Lascelles 8th Earl of Harewood, are finally beginning to address not only the sources of their family’s wealth, but also our collective colonial history and the traumatic consequences that can still be witnessed all too clearly in racism, inequalities in health, wealth, education and opportunity. In their cases it is about apology and accountability, with some of them making financial contributions towards charitable institutions and – in the Gladstone’s case – further research into the impact of the slave trade.

Harewood House, built between 1759-71 with the profits made from plantations and slavery

Others are at it too. Back in July, the Dutch King, Willem-Alexander, apologised on behalf of his country for the Netherland’s historical involvement in slavery and asked for forgiveness. It’s of course a flawed gesture in its incompleteness, but isn’t a heartfelt apology, whether possible or not so long after the event, at least a gesture of recognition of wrongdoing that can lead to a willingness to redress the former total loss of humanity? So many victim groups would attest to the immense value of a genuine ‘I’m sorry’.

King Willem-Alexander apologising on 160th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands

Our prime minister doesn’t think so. Back in April, Rishi Sunak refused to apologise for UK’s role in slavery saying that ‘trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward’ and that the focus, ‘while of course understanding our history in all its parts and not running away from it, is making sure that we have a society that is inclusive and tolerant of people from all backgrounds.’

Fair point about looking forwards. But how can you truly ‘understand’ such a horrific history, underpinned by past government policy, without being moved to demonstrate some direct expression of remorse to those it continues to affect? Or is that precisely what we are scared of? That an apology equates to an admission of culpability and therefore an obligation to compensate?

In his series of essays based on lectures delivered at Oxford University and bound into the 2009 book Guilt about the Past, Bernard Schlink, German author of the 1997 bestseller The Reader and various other literature, tackles not only German guilt about the past, but other long shadows of collective and global past guilt. (I am well aware we can’t actually be guilty of something we didn’t do, but we can still feel guilt.)

In the essay entitled ‘The Presence of the Past’, he addresses the issue of remembering or forgetting a traumatic past. “A collective past, like that of an individual, is traumatic when it is not allowed to be remembered and is just as much so if it has to be remembered… Detraumatisation is the process of becoming able to both remember and forget; it is leaving the past in the past, in a way that embraces remembrance as well as forgetting. This applies in the same way to the victims and their descendants as to the perpetrators and their descendants.” (p.36)

We need to find that balance.

One of Schlink’s claims that struck me most while exploring my own sense of guilt for my German family’s past was in the chapter on ‘Forgiveness and Reconciliation.’ He says that if someone seeks forgiveness for their own guilt it has weight, but “to ask for forgiveness for someone else’s guilt is cheap.” (p.73) 

Cheap… So where does that leave those of us living today and the question of apology for things that happened decades or even centuries ago? 

Detail from Patricia Kaersenhout’s ‘Of Palimpsests and Erasure’ (2021) (https://www.pkaersenhout.com)

Schlink and I come to a similar conclusion. It’s about understanding. He says, any kind of reconciliation requires “a truth that can be understood.” And “true understanding is more than searching for and finding causes. It includes putting yourself in someone else’s place, putting yourself in someone else’s thoughts and someone else’s feelings and seeing the world through that person’s eyes.” Doing this, he says, establishes equality. “We make [the other person] equal to us and us to them; we build up society when we understand.” (p.82)

This form of ‘understanding’ goes way beyond the slightly glib understanding the current leader of our country suggests. It requires engaging in the truth of what happened and feeling it. Feeling how appalling it was and being moved to act to heal and make good the wrongs that still poison our national veins and those of the human beings living today whose forefathers were harmed.

Further reading, as always not all links reflect my own opinions:

William Gladstone: family of former British PM to apologise for links to slavery 
William Gladstone’s family to apologise for historic links to slavery

‘I felt absolutely sick’: John Gladstone’s heir on his family’s role in slavery

Rishi Sunak rejects calls for slavery reparations from UK

When will Britain face up to its crimes against humanity?

Dutch king apologises for country’s historical involvement in slavery

Campaigners urge king to do more to acknowledge UK’s slavery role

The British aristocratic families reckoning with their slave owning past

The German translation of In My Grandfather’s Shadow will be published in Germany in September. Please contact me for details of forthcoming events relating to in Germany.

Title painting: ‘Salt of the African earth‘ by Angela Findlay, 1994

Remembering Russia’s past as a way to understanding its present

angela findlay12 Comments

The Remembrance Sunday of 2022 will be one of thankfully few since 1945 that sees another war in Europe raging. As we remember those who lost their lives in past wars, fellow Europeans will be losing theirs in the all too real conflict fighting itself out in Ukraine.

In my last blog I wrote about travelling the Berlin Wall Way, itself a form of 100+ mile-long memorial remembering both a repressive episode in history and those who lost their lives trying to escape it. Well, a little off that route in what was central East Berlin is Treptower Park, the largest Soviet military memorial outside the Soviet Union. Opened on 8th May 1949, it is a 10-hectare cemetery for 7000 of the more than 22,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the battle to take Berlin in the final months of the Second World War and contains the world-famous symbol of the role played by the Soviet Union in destroying National Socialism: the 13-meter towering statue of a Soviet soldier holding a lowered sword over a shattered swastika and cradling a rescued German child in his arm.

The Soviet Warrior Monument built by Yevgeny Vuchetich

To experience this place is to experience a sense of the enormity and profundity of the impact WW2 had on the Soviet / Russian people. For a start it is vast. And the extensive layout is designed to take you through a process of mourning and remembrance to honouring the victors as heroes and liberators. 

‘Heroes and liberators.’

We too use those words in relation to our own soldiers. But how often have we – or do we – actively honour the decisive role the Soviet soldiers played in defeating Nazi Germany? And how often do we include the mind-boggling numbers of Russians murdered or killed in the process (25 million to give a rough/round figure) in our process of remembrance? We don’t really, is the only answer I can find. And yet they were our allies in a war that we, as a nation, have made central to our national identity. Could our slightly introspective leanings and lack of acknowledgment of the Soviet sacrifices and achievement (among many other factors, not least the horrors of the Stalin era) have contributed to the attitudes of subsequent regimes and politics towards the West? Just a question… but one that walking through Treptower Park certainly made me ask.

‘Mother Homeland’

Entering through one of two avenues, the (tiny) visitor is led first to the statue of a grieving “Mother Homeland.” 

From there a promenade lined with weeping birches – incredibly moving witnessing trees seemingly crumpled in grief – you arrive at two sphynx-like kneeling soldiers that act as guardians to the cemetery section below. 

Looking back to the avenue of weeping birches
Looking ahead to the cemetery

Beautifully executed stone reliefs illustrating scenes from the ‘Great Patriotic War’ decorate the sixteen marble sarcophagi flanking the graves, while gold-lettered quotes by J. Stalin, the commander in chief of the Soviet armed forces, underscore the importance of the Communist Party and the Red Army under his leadership. Though clearly outdated, these quotes survived Khrushchev’s denouncement of Stalinist rule in 1956 with the subsequent cull of Stalin-statues and effective banning of any mention of his name in public. 

The sarcophagi tell the story of the Second World War in Russia…
…through extraordinary imagery and craftsmanship.
Dedicated to the ‘heroic dying’ of the Russian people

At the very far end, you climb a stepped hill to a mausoleum supporting the aforementioned bronze statue of a Soviet soldier holding a small German girl.

Turning around to descend, you get an overview of the whole dramatic panorama that reflects the historical narratives and artistic concepts dominant in the Soviet Union under Stalin and to a degree still exist today: monumentality, hero worship, a personality cult, and a claim to exclusivity.

Treptower Park has been and continues to be a frequent venue for commemorative events. Since 1990, with the signing of the German-Soviet treaty on neighbourly relations and the German-Russian agreement on the upkeep of war graves in 1992, the Federal Republic of Germany committed itself to the care, renovation and maintenance of all Soviet military graves and war memorials in Germany. 

The evident meticulousness with which the whole site continues to be maintained (and patrolled by German police) is another of Germany’s visible expressions of understanding and reconciliation that have been extended to the Russian Federation and other countries brutally destroyed in the Third Reich’s expansionist and ideological wake. Does this reaching out in friendship make it easier to understand Angela Merkel’s unpopular (certainly in retrospect) policy relating to the Nord Stream pipeline? And the apparent weakness of Olaf Scholz’s initial reluctance to break Germany’s practice and permit the transfer of lethal weapons to areas of conflict… in this case, to Ukraine?

If the premise of my book is true and unresolved traumas of one generation can impact the lives and behaviour of subsequent generations, then the extreme collective traumas experienced by the Russian people over the past century are part of what we are seeing playing out in the attitudes, politics and actions of Russia today. Trauma responses such as emotional numbness, low self-esteem, acceptance of poverty might go some way to explain the apparent passivity and gullibility of large swathes of the population. Likewise, trauma responses such as shame might be producing the violence, megalomania and greed of those in power. Is this then, by extension of the idea, the natural destiny of all traumatised nations? After all we can see similar dysfunction and violence in Africa, South America and plenty of other nations once brutally colonised.

‘Psychohistory‘ – a new but exciting term to me that I appear to have already been practicing – seems to offer a way forward in thinking about these things. It combines history with psychology/psychoanalysis and social sciences/humanities to understand the emotional origin of the behavior of individuals, groups and nations, past and present. In other words, the ‘why’ of history.

I don’t have any answers, nor even the right questions yet, just an ever-growing sense of discomfort in simple, black and white narratives of good and bad, right and wrong. And an increasing belief that we are still very far from seeing, let alone comprehending the fuller picture. But we need to become more trauma-informed in all areas of life. For to neglect trauma is to leave people in a state of emotional numbness. And when you don’t feel, you become capable of overriding humanity and care for fellow living beings and life itself.

Further Reading / Viewing: 

These questions are explored more deeply in my book: In My Grandfather’s Shadow. Published by Penguin Transworld and Bantam Press in July 2022 and available in most bookshops and the usual online outlets

The brilliant BBC documentary ‘Russia 1985-1999: Traumazone’ by Adam Curtis is made up of multiple film snippets taken in those years. As a fly on the wall experience and from the comfort of an armchair, it doesn’t get much ‘better’ in terms of an experience of Russia. To have lived through those years of extreme deprivation, corruption and hunger must have been little short of appalling.

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone review – ingenious, essential viewing from Adam Curtis

‘Generations of hurt’: Children and grandchildren of war survivors fear ripple effect of Russia’s war in Ukraine

Russia has yet to recover from the trauma of the Stalin era – The Guardian

Becoming aware of the invisible ties that bind us to the past…

angela findlay3 Comments

It is now just three weeks until the publication of my book, In My Grandfather’s Shadow. A week in the stunning, state-of-the-art Penguin Random House studio recording the whole thing for the audio book version has left me feeling more intimately connected to it than before. Like a parent, I have spent years nurturing it into its current shape. Now it is leaving the nest and heading into the big wide world… how exciting is that! 

Most of you will already have an idea of the themes it is likely to address from my blogs. And – spoiler alert – it does. But possibly the main thrust of the book – as stipulated by Penguin Transworld when they took me on – was to focus on the heritability of trauma. It involved ‘a bit’ (read: ‘total mind-fry’) of a re-write. Yet ultimately they were right. Because this idea, that we can inherit psychological wounds from our forebears, is gaining more and more traction.

The process or re-structuring a book…

One of the book’s working titles was ‘Invisible Lines’, which I liked. But ‘line’ is somehow wrong. Even the letters that make up those two words are too straight, too linear. For, while there is obviously a linear logic to the structure and the content, the essence explores hidden cycles and the bits of life that meander or tie themselves in knots. Or that appear unsubstantial, unreal even, when really they are holding the tiller to our lives.  

As I have said before, trauma, guilt and shame abide in the psyches of us all to a greater or lesser degree. They are part of what it is to be human. But frequently they remain unidentified, like bottom dwellers in the sea of our emotions that stir up the mud to cloud our vision and cause havoc with how we see, not only ourselves, but others and the wider world. 

In My Grandfather’s Shadow therefore takes readers on a deep dive into largely unknown or unspoken – until recently – corners of experience. Not just of those who lived through the Second World War, but those who came after. It looks at the impact of war and violence in general, a theme that has gained an unwelcome pertinence in the light – or should I say darkness – of Russia’s war in Ukraine with its horrific reports of rapes, brutal murders, forced transportations that echoe my grandfather’s letters from the eastern front in 1941-2. War is as old as the world. But where the brutality was once confined to the battlefield and soldiers, Ukraine is a salient reminder that modern warfare invariably extends into the homes and lives of civilians. For generations.

It is probably easy to imagine how the extreme traumas of the Holocaust could affect the offspring of survivors as well. Traumatic imprints have long been witnessed in second and third generations. What is less known because it could only be articulated when the non-Jewish German grandchildren of those who lived through the war came of age in their 40s, is that traumatic experiences of any nature, if left unattended or untreated, can seriously disrupt the lives of subsequent generations. The process is variably referred to as ‘transgenerational transmission’ or ‘emotional inheritance.’ Even science is embracing the possibility with its own language: ‘epigenetics.’ (See article) 

How Parents’ Trauma Leaves Biological Traces in Children – Scientific American

Whether biological, psychological, genetic or spiritual, the process of transmission is not new. What is new, is our growing awareness of it. And with that awareness comes responsibility. Responsibility to address the cause of the damage, to find ways to resolve or heal it, and then to prevent it. To neglect trauma, particularly in children, and to ignore how it’s effects can linger on for generations is to potentially condemn them to lives of violence, self-harm, substance misuse, depressions, low self-esteem, underachievement or a general sense of something being amiss, all of which are becoming increasingly endemic in our society. It is therefore in everybody’s interest to do this.

This is one of the reasons I took the risk of bearing my soul and writing my book. Because I really hope that parents, teachers, doctors, psychologists, politicians might open their minds to the possibility that behind someone’s problematic behaviour or attitudes, their unemployability, fears or lack of motivation there might lie an unresolved family trauma, wrongdoing or injustice that is seeking resolution through that person without them realising it. It took me five decades to unravel the ties that bound me to the experiences of my immediate forebears. Because nobody knew about it back then.

Well, we do now. Or at least you will do when you have read my book!

In the words of those who have read it:

“Can we as individuals untangle ourselves from a past that binds us to the suffering and deeds of our predecessors?”This profound question forms the basis of this remarkable memoir in which Findlay – granddaughter of Wehrmacht officer, General Karl von Graffen – wrestles the feelings of ‘badness within her’ that has plagued both her mental health and her sense of self for years. It’s a powerful investigation into the individual personal cost that results from wider history, and the ways in which inherited guilt and trauma can leave scars across the generations. A must read… Caroline Sanderson, Editor’s Choice in The Bookseller

This is a moving and powerful memoir that illuminates the extraordinary power of unprocessed trauma as it passes through generations, and how when it is faced it can be healed. Julia Samuel, author of Every Family Has a Story, Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass

An unflinching exploration of shame and pain passed between generations.  This is a powerful and important book which will change the way in which we understand ourselves. Emma Craigie, author

A page turner of the highest calibre! Meticulously researched, searingly honest and beautifully written, this timely book is a salient reminder of how intergenerational relationships connect threads between past and present... This book gives new meaning to the prescient words of psychoanalyst, Roger Woolger: ‘It is the responsibility of the living to heal the dead. Otherwise their unfinished business will continue to play out in our fears, phobias and illnesses.’ Marina Cantacuzino, author and founder of The Forgiveness Project

This is an absolutely extraordinary book. In peeling back the layers of her family history, Angela Findlay reveals a vast, hidden European story that few nations have ever been brave enough to confront. Keith Lowe, author of Savage Continent, The Fear and the Freedom, and Prisoners of History

A compelling journey through guilt and shame that asks fundamental and painful questions about the extent of a family member’s participation in one of the biggest crimes of the 20th century. Derek Niemann, author of A Nazi in the family

From 14th July, you will be able to purchase In My Grandfather’s Shadow at a bookshop near you such as Waterstones or various online stores .

What a year… and on we go…

angela findlay6 Comments

What a year 2021 has been! 

Just in my blogs alone we’ve watched the storming of the White House and the removal of contentious statues. We’ve marked Holocaust Memorial Day in January, the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden in February and remembered to remember – albeit only just – Remembrance Sunday in November. You shared my experiences of deep anxiety prior to giving a TEDx talk in March, explored the idea of inherited trauma and guilt as well as ‘genetic pain’, and toured a German photographer’s exhibition: Long Shadows of War. I have taken you – as I frequently do – into the depths and dysfunctions of our prison service. First, via a gruelling TV series, then through new government policies, from relatively harmless ones such as the introduction of high-vis jackets that simply won’t work to terrifying ‘Saudi Arabia-style’ approaches that leave 18-year-old women giving birth alone in cells. We also witnessed the tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan and questioned the sense of trying and locking up nonagenarian former Nazis. 

Thank you for joining me on all or some of those journeys of enquiry and thought.

It feels like there is so much going on in the world, like we are hurtling towards bigger disasters while still mopping up smaller ones. It’s hard to remain optimistic when our own horizons have shrunk due to the imposed or self-imposed Covid restrictions, and yet good things can come out of all this unrest and uncertainty. Like my book!

For the past months, I have been strapped to my desk in a mad rush to meet deadlines and finally ‘finish my book’. I know, I know, you’ve heard that before. I’ve said it before because I frequently thought I had. This time, and certainly by Christmas, I really will have and, what’s more, you can read about it and… drum roll… even pre-order it HERE… What a perfect Christmas gift! Just know it won’t actually be published until 7th July 2022. 

I have never known such a gargantuan task as writing a non-fiction book of around 100,000 words. But then In My grandfather’s Shadow weaves together all the threads running through my blogs, my careers, my whole life, into one narrative. Set against the backdrop of Germany’s Second World War and post-war decades, it tells the stories of three generations – my German grandfather, a decorated General who served on the eastern front; my German mother, who fled Berlin in 1945 as the Soviets advanced, and me, their respective Anglo-German granddaughter and daughter who, by some transgenerational mechanism, carried some of the scars of war that they hadn’t been able to heal.

That’s all I will tell you about it right now. But, on top of my usual responding to current developments within my blog themes, I intend to devote next year’s blogs to whetting your appetites with little morsels until you feel you absolutely have to read the book!

For now though, as 2021 draws to its dark and slightly messy close, I would just like to wish you a very happy festive season, good health of mind, body and soul, and much love, light and laughter in your hearts for the new year ahead. 

Look forward to seeing you in some form in 2022. It’s going to be really good… or at least better. Even if it is just ‘fine’, all is and will be well.

Cheers to that!