Angela Findlay is an Anglo-German artist and public speaker who has spent much of her career teaching art in prisons. Her time 'behind bars' in Germany and later as Arts Co-ordinator for the London-based Koestler Arts charity informed her research into the intergenerational consequences of unresolved trauma, guilt and shame. For over a decade, she has been lecturing and writing on the topic as well as on post-war remembrance, resolution and reconciliation. In My Grandfather's Shadow is her first book.
A remarkable cross-pollination of memoir, psychology and history in
which the author comes to grips with being the granddaughter of a
Nazi general.
*i Paper*
Brave ... full of insights and good research.
*Times Literary Supplement*
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*
In My Grandfather's Shadow is an extraordinary book. Beautifully
written, poignant and acutely perceptive; endlessly
thought-provoking and challenging. From the nature of wickedness to
the phenomenon of epigenetics, it is also an extremely powerful and
different way of seeing the vast and terrible tides of history.
*Sinclair McKay, author of Berlin, Dresden, and The Secret Life of
Bletchley Park*
Seeking to untangle the complexities of her own life, the author
goes in search of a WW2 German general - the grandfather she never
knew. The outcome is a powerful and at times painfully honest story
that will touch readers at many levels.
*Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third Reich and A Village
in the Third Reich*
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*
[A] remarkable memoir .... 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
generations.
*The Bookseller*
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, Sunday Times bestselling author of Savage Continent:
Europe in the Aftermath of World War II*
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.
The author skillfully excavates her grandfather's life putting the
family puzzle together piece by piece to create a forensic and
fascinating portrait of the past. Her 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*
What do you do if you are British and German and tormented by a
vague sense of guilt which is ruining your life? The answer, in
Angela Findlay's case, is you track down your WWII German general
grandfather, who waged war on Russia. In a fast-moving story told
with great feeling and solid scholarship, Angela Findlay confronts
questions of good and evil, generational guilt and reconciliation
... This is a fine book: moving, serious and told with compelling
verve. The moral is that honest remembrance of the past helps
people live better futures.
*Marcus Ferrar, author of A Foot in Both Camps: a German Past for
Better and for Worse*
In My Grandfather's Shadow' is a brave, powerful, honest,
thoughtful and meticulously researched book. I enjoyed it
immensely. It has made me think very hard about intergenerational
trauma transfer and explains so much about Germany, and perhaps, in
the current context, Russia.
*General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied
Commander Europe and author of ‘War with Russia’*
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 of Hitler's Last Day*
In My Grandfather's Shadow is utterly compelling, elegantly written
and extremely brave. The beauty of the book is how absolutely
clearly it shows the depth and breadth of the author's research;
the care and sensitivity she has brought to bear on the most
difficult of subjects.
*Cotswold Life*
In this gripping account of a long personal journey to confront a
difficult family history, Findlay explores the effects of trauma,
reveals the healing power of art, and affords deep insights into
contemporary memorial culture.
*Bill Niven, Professor Emeritus in Contemporary German History at
Nottingham Trent University and author of Facing the Nazi Past*
A brave and profound book which asks difficult questions about how
we live with those parts of history which we would rather forget.
Angela Findlay is tireless in her search for the truth - and for a
reconciliation process which acknowledges that there can be no neat
conclusions. Many readers will find this book informative, healing
and inspiring.
*??????Alice Jolly, author of Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile and Dead
Babies and Seaside Towns*
A magnificent achievement. So honest, so thorough and so well
written, both Angela's search for truth and this book are about the
deepest possible experience of transmitted collective/personal
trauma.
*Pamela Steiner, EdD, Senior Fellow, FXB Center for Health and
Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health and author of
Collective Trauma and the Armenian Genocide*
Angela Findlay has written a brave and unflinchingly honest
exploration of the complex legacy of her German grandfather's
activities as a top-ranking Wehrmacht officer in WW2. Her book is
essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the
far-reaching impact of transgenerational memory, shame or trauma,
and a moving testament to the personal and collective value of
reckoning with the past.
r
*Rebecca Abrams, author of The Jewish Journey: 4000 Years in 22
Objects and Licoricia of Wincheste*
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