Menachem Kaiser--author of Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and People Magazine Best New Book of 2021--shares with Eve and Julie how his attempts to reclaim a building that had belonged to his family before World War II led to familial and historical discovery. They discuss how, during his time in Poland, Menachem developed a greater consciousness of the moral and legal justifications for, and ramifications of, reparations; what it was like being embraced by Nazi treasure hunters whose ambitions resonated oddly with his; and how the celebrated myth of his grandfather’s cousin--a Holocaust survivor whose diary of his time building underground Nazi tunnels made him renowned among the treasure hunters--endures while the memory of the man himself fades.
Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure
“Often hilarious, often poignant … A light tone belies the book’s seriousness of purpose: to tease out thorny issues of inheritance, reparations, and what it means to honor one’s dead.” —New Yorker
Go Deeper
Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure, by Menachem Kaiser
Silesia, South West province of Poland
Abraham Kaiser, Menachem Kaiser's grandfather's cousin
Za Drutami Śmierci, by Abraham Kaiser