Unforeseen Legacy

In summer 2021, Monica returned to the family home for the first time since her mother Harriet’s death. In the interval, the family had found a folder containing 120 pages of letters from her grandparents in Nazi Germany. Harriet had never mentioned the correspondence, or at least not to her children Monica, Anita, and Robert.The letters spanned the period from October 1940 to November 1941. They sparked an intense rush of emotion, and Monica decided to translate them. In the process, she began to dig deeper, turning to German sources and archives in and around her mother’s hometown.She read how eagerly her grandparents had awaited news about Harriet’s daily life, trying to understand her circumstances and choices, happy she was safe. They would report on visits with friends and acquaintances, yet their fear and desperation became more and more palpable. Meanwhile, Harriet was adjusting to and enjoying New York and struggling to get her parents out of Germany.Eighty years later, Monica’s pressing questions evolved into a two-year-long research project that led her and her husband Francis back to Westphalia and back into Harriet’s life. ‘Back’ because there is also an unusual postwar coda to this story. Harriet had resumed contact with her pre-war friends starting in 1970 when she first returned to her hometown and brought her own children along. So, Monica and Francis were in familiar territory when they returned to towns, villages and cemeteries, meeting with archivists, authorities and descendants of Harriet’s friends. History with a personal touch.

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