Imagine walking into your local library in Hamburg, picking up a book at random and discovering that your grandfather was a mass murderer: the Butcher of Plaszow. Imagine further that you remember having seen him years before, in Schindler's List, being played by Ralph Fiennes – the concentration camp commandant who would pick off prisoners from his balcony with his rifle when he thought they weren't working hard enough. Add to that learning that your dear grandmother pined for her life as the "queen" of the Plaszow camp. Unsurprisingly, the knowledge plunged this relatively well-adjusted 39-year-old adoptee into a voyage of self-discovery, obsession, pain and guilt. Then she began to reject her loving adoptive family. A book for psychologists, amateur and otherwise.
