Géraldine Schwarz is joined by Philippe Sands to discuss her new memoir, Those Who Forget, exploring her family's complicity with fascism.
In association with Institut Français du Royaume Uni and Goethe-Institut London and with the help of Daunt Books, join us via Zoom for a Q&A discussion featuring German-French journalist, author and documentary filmmaker Géraldine Schwarz (author of
Those Who Forget) and Philippe Sands (the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ratline and
East West Street) for a discussion of Géraldine’s book, an account of her family's complicity with fascism.
During the war, Géraldine Schwarz's grandparents were neither heroes nor villains - they just followed the current. Afterwards they wanted to forget, to bury it all under the wreckage of the Third Reich. But decades later, delving through the basement of their apartment building, Géraldine discovers that her grandfather Karl profited from the forced 'Aryanisation' of Jewish businesses - and so she is compelled to investigate her ancestors' past. On her mother's side, she delves into the role of her French grandfather, a policeman during the Vichy regime. How guilty were they?
Combining generations of family stories with the history of Europe's post-war reckoning, Géraldine asks: how did Germans transform their collective guilt into democratic responsibility? And, given rising populism in Europe today, how can we ensure we learn from history?
Book tickets on Eventbrite
Géraldine Schwarz is a German-French journalist, author and documentary filmmaker based in Berlin. Those Who Forget, an account of her family's complicity with fascism, is her first book. It has been translated into eight languages and won the European Book Prize 2018, the German Winfried Preis and the Italian Nord-Sud Prize.
Philippe Sands QC is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He appears as counsel before international courts and tribunals, and sits as an international arbitrator. He is author of Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008) and several academic books on international law, and has contributed to the New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, the Financial Times and The Guardian. His new book, The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive, is published in April 2020. It is also available as a BBC podcast. Philippe is President of English PEN and a member of the Board of the Hay Festival.
In association with Institut Français du Royaume Uni, Goethe-Institut London and with the help of Daunt Books.
The event will be introduced by Adam Freudenheim, Publisher and MD of Pushkin Press.
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