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Snap Judgment

The Family Name - Snap Classic

Snap Judgment

Snap Judgment and PRX

Snap, Glynn, Storytelling, Wnyc, Society & Culture/personal Journals, Performing Arts, Washington, Society & Culture/documentary, Arts/performing Arts, Music, Arts

4.811.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Julie Lindahl discovered that her grandfather had been an active member of the German SS, she decided to return to the scene of his crimes. But her grandmother made things difficult.

This story contains brief descriptions of graphic imagery and torture. Please take care while listening.

Thanks, Julie, for sharing your story with us! Julie Lindahl has written a book about her experience: The Pendulum: A Granddaughter's Search for Her Family's Forbidden Nazi Past.

A version of this story was originally produced for the podcast Kind World, which tells stories about the effect a single act can have on our lives. You can find Kind World in any podcast app.

Produced by Erika Lantz with production assistance from Liz Mak

Original Score and Sound Design by Leon Morimoto

Artwork by Teo Ducot

Season 13 - Episode 23 - Snap Classic

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Now, Judgment Studios.

0:07.0

You know, I'm reading a book like you do on building strong families in every thing. And this book says that one characteristic of strong families is that they know their history.

0:36.0

I know their history, so I get my kids together. I sit them down to tell them the history of their family, of my family.

0:45.0

And they sit waiting, expected for the knowledge to drop, right? But then I start considering that history. And what I really know.

1:00.0

The best, the most charitable way to put it is that there's a creative interpretation gene burned into our family DNA.

1:10.0

Truth, lies, wishes, hopes, dreams, all assume the same status. To give you just the smallest window, apparently my grandmother sometimes collected kids who needed a place to live.

1:25.0

Sometimes they stayed, sometimes they didn't. And it's wonderful. I love her for that. But over the years, who's who gets mixed up? And I have four uncles that I am just now learning I'm not technically related to.

1:42.0

And did my grandfather really spend three years of his childhood mostly living in an actual T.P. with Cherokee relatives? It seems unlikely when you say it out loud. But that's gospel. That's sacred family lore. So I tell my kids what I know.

2:05.0

I tell them that your great, great grandfather let a slave revolt and drown his captors into the sea before turning the ship back around.

2:15.0

I tell them that I remember the shine of tears on my grandmother's eyes when she recalled that three days after her baby Eddie was born.

2:28.0

But he disappeared from the bassinet from where she had just lain him and all of the relatives and eventually all of our community searched for this missing infant from sun up till sundown.

2:41.0

And was not until she prayed to her ancestors and to her Jesus that she thought to cut open the red squash. And when she pride opened the door, bear slept baby Eddie, my uncle.

3:01.0

I tell them that your great, great grandmother discovered the moon. I tell them that you are born of these stories. Remember them like sacred text. They are better than true. They are history.

3:20.0

Then snap judgment. We explore the family secrets that bring us together and those that tear us apart. We're calling it the family name. My name is Lomblashmton.

3:39.0

And sometimes a lie in the truth are the same thing when you're listening to snap judgment.

4:02.0

Understand those secrets we hide or take their loved ones can never truly be cast aside.

4:10.0

Our first story begins from Julie Lindahl was going up in the 1970s. He loved visiting her grandmother's apartment. It was a peaceful place. It felt like another world.

4:24.0

Since the listeners should know this story does contain graphic imagery. It was the quiet. To me, it was as though whenever I went in there, the carpet absorbed sound.

4:36.0

The windows were very thick. So no sound from the outside road came in. One of her favorite poems by a poet called Uland. He said, quiet is best.

4:49.0

In the calm of her grandmother's apartment, Julie would sometimes leave through old family photos. One of the albums had a photo of a man and a dark overcoat standing in a field, looking down his face a black and white blur.

5:18.0

This was Julie's grandfather. He was a mystery to her. He died when she was young and the only thing she knew about her grandfather was that he'd been a farmer. That's because nobody really talked about him. And somehow she knew not to ask.

5:35.0

And he mentioned that her grandfather was met with silence, hostile silence. And whatever this thing was that made everybody stop talking, had kind of broken everyone.

...

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