Letters to My Father

"Memory means that something remains – even when so much has disappeared"
Konrad Bernheimer is four years old when his grandfather brings him back to Munich in 1954 from Venezuela, where the Jewish family had fled from the Nazis – back to where the Bernheimers were rooted as art and antiques dealers. His Venezuelan mother and his sisters accompany him on the journey. His father, Kurt, was also supposed to return with the family, but this did not happen. The little boy is told that his father died in a car accident. No one in the family wants to talk about the true circumstances.
Only later does Konrad Bernheimer – by then an adult and an internationally successful art dealer – learn what really happened: His father, who could never overcome the persecution by the Nazis, had taken his own life. This book is the author's moving attempt to enter into a conversation with his deceased father. A conversation about shame and guilt, about love and formative experiences, and the burden that history places upon one.


Manufacturer / Responsible Person:
Langen Müller Verlag GmbH, Thomas-Wimmer-Ring 11, 80539, Munich, Germany, info@langenmueller.de