In 2017, former Sports Illustrated journalist Alexander Wolff (Big Game, Small World) set out to explore his family's German roots. The result is Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape and Home, a fascinating mixture of memoir, journalism, history and an up-close look at one family's complicated relationship with Nazi Germany.
Two biographical narratives stand at the heart of Endpapers. Wolff's grandfather, Kurt Wolff, was a leading publisher of contemporary literature in Germany, publishing authors whose works would later be burned by the Nazis. In 1933, he fled Germany with his wife, Helen, and took refuge in the United States, where they founded a new, equally influential, publishing house. They left behind Kurt's family from his first marriage, including Wolff's father, Niko, who served in the German army, spent time in a POW camp and emigrated to the U.S. in 1948.
In the course of tracing their stories, Wolff discovers family secrets. He learns the intricacies of which family members escaped being labeled as Jewish by the Nazis. He realizes how deeply his grandmother's family, the Mercks of Merck Pharmaceuticals, were involved with the Nazis. And he eventually confronts the questions of guilt, shame and accountability that many Germans of his generation struggled with decades earlier.
Ultimately, Endpapers is not only the gripping story of one family's history, but an important exploration of responsibility for the past. It will appeal to those concerned with how the United States should recognize past atrocities as well as to history buffs. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins