Confronting a Nazi Past
20th Century • 29m
Derek Niemman and Noemie Lopian work together. Two people from very different backgrounds, they tour the world telling people about their family stories. Author and writer Derek Niemann discovered only a few years ago that the grandfather he never knew had been an SS officer, in charge of slave labourers in the Nazi concentration camps. Dr Noemie Lopian is the daughter of Holocaust survivors: at the age of 10, her mother had a Gestapo pistol pointed at her head. Her father survived four years of slave labour and concentration camps. Noemie translated her father's gripping and deeply humane memoir of those years - The Long Night. The crimes committed by and against their forebears have drawn Noemie and Derek to form a highly unusual and indeed possibly unique partnership. In 2019, Noemie and Derek began sharing their stories as a warning of the perils of extremism and to inspire greater understanding.
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