★ 12/17/2018
In this powerful and solemn memoir, Lindahl (Rose in the Sand ), who was born in Brazil to a German family, recounts seeking the truth about her grandparents’ Nazi past, which her family hid from her. The secretiveness and inaccurate testimony of her only living source, her grandmother, hinders her progress, leading her to travel to Germany, Poland, and Latin America to search through documents and interview an array of people who interacted with her grandfather during his lifetime, including people who suffered under his hand as children, and relatives she thought were dead. She learns that her grandparents were members of the SS (her grandfather worked in its think tank, the Ahnehnerbe) who participated in the “Germanization” (i.e., forced resettlement of the local population, extermination of Jews, and colonization by Germans) of Poland. In prose that is formal, yet poetic and heartfelt (“While truth can be elusive, often staring at us from outside the rain-spattered window of our own perception, the failure to believe that it exists... is the seed of self-destruction”), Lindahl shares what she learned during seven years of research and travel. Many readers will be moved and find meaning in Lindahl’s journey to come to terms with her family’s past and process the guilt of inherited sins. (Oct.)
A powerful, painfully human, and honest work of words and heart...Beautiful in the writing sense, horrific in reflection upon all the lives.
I opened The Pendulum and immediately found myself drawn into it. As a historian, I often wondered how we could profit from the determined pursuit of haunted family stories by descendants of individual perpetrators. Here’s the breathtaking answer.
Julie Lindahl has a kind of courage that is rarely found. Her truthfulness is a rigorous and raw inquiry into history through her own ancestry. She avoids the quick gloss and embraces the hard work of holding her family’s intergenerational traumas up to the light. What shines through is difficult, but loving. The story is horrible and yet filled with possibility. While her writing is beautiful and effortless, the subject she carries is anything but. I deeply respect her willingness to face the cultural complexity that lives in her own skin.
An extraordinary meditation on evil and complicity, and on the role future generations play when trying to uncover a perfidious past. With a brilliant prose that often reads as poetry, Julie Lindahl explores and discovers her family’s Nazi past. A narrative that is deeply moving as well as informative in its history.
An intimate investigation into family truth and lies, shame and grief, anger and indignation. Unfolding like a mystery novel with the very highest stakes, it not only looks with honesty and wisdom at the past but purposefully asks what we're going to make of it for the future. The brilliance and novelty of Lindahl's courageous journey lies in situating her own family history within our collective experience and common pain, thereby reawakening our shared duty to break the silence and go make things better.
A book of immense courage, written with elegance and great power.
I have never read a book as perceptive, intuitive, and courageous as Julie Lindahl’s memoir. She is the first of her generation to describe the reverberations of that terrible Darwinism, that ‘Herrenmensch’ orientation, and its overwhelming consequences so profoundly. I thank her with all my heart.
A powerful book about good and evil that has become even more important in today’s climate of mounting far-right extremism and alternative facts.
A clear-sighted and courageous reckoning with a family's problematic legacy and the trauma that has affected it for generations. The story raises interesting questions about memory, legacy and reconciliation. The language is well crafted with compelling momentum, and the personal portraits are nuanced and credible. The Pendulum is a worthy, at times challenging, read about guilt, trauma, and the difficulty of reconciling with the past.
BTJ (Swedish Library Service)
This deeply impressive book is relentlessly honest and raises many pertinent questions about the aftermath of trauma, who we are in relation to the past, and the ways in which destructive ideologies and bigotry can affect the next generation and must be dealt with. It gave my students an understanding of shame legacies and how they can be unpacked with sincerity and compassion.
As we travel with Julie Lindahl, we gain a deeper capacity for justice, compassion and commitment to confront today’s unthinkable evils. Her investigation and the publication of her excruciating family history have come at a high personal cost—but also with the joy of discovering long-lost relatives and building a global family of survivors and readers. We all are now deeply indebted to her.
Outstanding insights into the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust—based on the perspective of both perpetrators and their descendants. The book is indispensable for anyone who wants to see the extent and complexity of the lasting influence of war, not only in its own time but also for future generations.
A sustained rumination on the morbid past and how vitally essential it is to confront this honestly.. . [Lindahl] has set an example we must hope her students and our society will follow.
The Nazi past casts long shadows and leaves many traumatized to this day. Julie Lindahl digs deep into her own family history to uncover dark secrets dating back to the Holocaust. The Pendulum is a deeply engaging and captivating human search for answers, atonement, and closure.
In the literature of the Holocaust, the story of the perpetrator is rarely told from ‘the inside.’ Julie Lindahl has taken on this painstaking task when she tells us the story of her family. It is written from the heart but has outstanding literary qualities—a rare but phenomenal combination. The result is a very important book that is difficult to put down before you reach the end.
The Pendulum is an extraordinary and very timely book. Julie Lindahl keeps the reader deeply engaged with her clear and poetic voice. Reading this book is like reading a mystery story as the reader is experiencing the urgency of the search for truth; we are with her as she is turning over one stone after another, each revealing the undeniable cruelty that had torn her family apart. This is a journey in which every subtle emotional shift is described with great fidelity. The reader will have great appreciation for Lindahl’s fearless introspection and her most engaging way of sharing her insights with us.
An intimate investigation into family truth and lies, shame and grief, anger and indignation. Unfolding like a mystery novel with the very highest stakes, it not only looks with honesty and wisdom at the past but purposefully asks what we're going to make of it for the future. The brilliance and novelty of Lindahl's courageous journey lies in situating her own family history within our collective experience and common pain, thereby reawakening our shared duty to break the silence and go make things better.
As we travel with Julie Lindahl, we gain a deeper capacity for justice, compassion and commitment to confront today's unthinkable evils. Her investigation and the publication of her excruciating family history have come at a high personal cost--but also with the joy of discovering long-lost relatives and building a global family of survivors and readers. We all are now deeply indebted to her.
I opened The Pendulum and immediately found myself drawn into it. As a historian, I often wondered how we could profit from the determined pursuit of haunted family stories by descendants of individual perpetrators. Here’s the breathtaking answer.
A powerful book about good and evil that has become even more important in today’s climate of mounting far-right extremism and alternative facts.
