Venke

Venke Fehlis spent roughly forty years trying to learn who her parents really were, and the search took a heavy personal toll. What she eventually uncovered was that her father was Heinrich Fehlis, the much-feared head of the Gestapo in Norway, and that her mother had been his young Norwegian lover.

Over the years, her mother released the truth in fragments, and much of what she offered was twisted, partly true, or simply false. Following these leads, Venke learned that her father took his own life rather than be taken into custody, and that her mother had been committed to a psychiatric institution after trying to end both her own life and that of the young Venke.

The search also brought her into contact with a half-brother from the Fehlis family that had stayed behind after the war, and with her father's widow. Venke came to share a close bond with these relatives. Meanwhile, her relationship with her mother, who was abusive, narcissistic and an alcoholic, grew steadily worse.

By the end, Venke has had to face what it means that her father was a henchman of Hitler who coldly sent men to their deaths and became known as the "Desktop Executioner." The memoir lays out her findings in a way that makes the grim account believable and presents the people involved as human beings rather than figures beyond comprehension. It will appeal most to readers interested in the atrocities of the Second World War and in how those events shaped individual lives.