Vanishing Acts: Perpetrators in Postwar Germany

Family history is a dangerously neglected aspect of Germany's struggle with memory of the Holocaust. Breaking with established procedures of scholarly detachment, the author explores this subject via her own family history. This essay traces the career, court trials, and subsequent trial suspension of one SS officer, who was also the author's uncle. By drawing upon archival documents, textual analysis of court documents, and personal recollections, the author illustrates the powerful pressures that erase consciousness of genocide while protecting families and communities from facing the moral dilemmas raised by evil of such magnitude.