Ep. 58 - Plundering Lovely, Messy, Family Stories

Book Dreams

What strange and unexpected paths might one author take delving into his family's history? Menachem Kaiser--author of Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and People Magazine Best New Book of 2021--shares with Eve and Julie how his attempts to reclaim a building that had belonged to his grandfather before World War II led to unexpected discoveries. They discuss how, during his time in Poland, Menachem developed a greater awareness of the moral justifications for, and ramifications of, reparations; what it was like being embraced by Nazi treasure hunters whose ambitions resonated oddly with his own; and how the celebrated myth of his grandfather’s cousin--a Holocaust survivor whose diary of his time building underground Nazi tunnels made him a folk hero in Poland--endures while the memory of the man himself fades.

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