Ein Mantel des Schweigens

Silence prevailed in both the families of victims of the Nazi regime and among the perpetrators. Without relativizing the responsibility for the crimes, parallels can be drawn regarding the effects. Historian and journalist Johannes Reitter reconstructs the biographies of ancestors whose involvement in the events of that time had been shrouded in a cloak of silence for decades. The focus is on the questions of who these ancestors were, when and under what circumstances the silence was broken, and what commonalities, as well as differences, can be identified. Twenty individual cases are examined using archival materials, oral history interviews, and documents from the families' possession. The biography of an ancestor of the author who was executed in 1940 is also outlined. Patterns, causes, and consequences of the secrecy surrounding Nazi crimes, complicity, and persecution are illuminated.