In her new book, Judith Hermann traces the shadow of a family history long left unspoken. Her grandfather served in the SS and was stationed in Radom, Poland, where the Nazis confined 30,000 Jewish people to a ghetto. Her mother remembers almost nothing of him. Seeking what has been lost or suppressed, the narrator travels to Radom. From there, she continues to Naples to visit her sister – who refuses to confront the past.

What emerges is not only a journey across places, but across silences. How can one write about a Nazi grandfather? And how do you tell a story shaped as much by what is missing as by what remains?

«To write the gaps – hardly anyone masters this as brilliantly as the great stylist Judith Hermann. » (Katja Schönherr, SRF 2 Kultur)