Author talk with Daniel Lee – The SS Officer’s Armchair: Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi

Apr 11, 2021 2:00PM

Categories , , , , ,

The JCA presents Book Festival in Your Living Room

In partnership with the JCC Literary Consortium and the Atlanta JCC

DANIEL LEE – The SS Officer’s Armchair: Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi

Sunday, April 11th | 2 PM ET

Tickets – free virtual ticket, or $35 for event ticket plus book and shipping:

https://www.showclix.com/event/daniel-lee-ss-officers-armchair/tag/portland

 

One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich’s Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war. An expert in the history of the Holocaust, Lee was fascinated to know more about this man–and how his most precious documents ended up hidden inside a chair, hundreds of miles from Prague and Stuttgart. In The S.S. Officer’s Armchair, Lee weaves detection with biography to tell an astonishing narrative of ambition and intimacy in the Third Reich. He uncovers Griesinger’s American back-story–his father was born in New Orleans and the family had ties to the plantations and music halls of nineteenth century Louisiana. As Lee follows the footsteps of a rank and file Nazi official seventy years later, and chronicles what became of him and his family at the war’s end, Griesinger’s role in Nazi crimes comes into focus. When Lee stumbles on an unforeseen connection between Griesinger and the murder of his own relatives in the Holocaust, he must grapple with potent questions about blame, manipulation, and responsibility.

More Events

Beginner Mah Jongg Class with Judi Slotsky Session 7

Oct 03, 2023 9:00AM—11:00AM

JCA Library

Crafternoon

Oct 04, 2023 12:00PM—2:00PM

Moser Family Library at the JCA 1342 Congress St, Portland ME

Beginners Pickleball Course, Session 6

Oct 10, 2023 10:00AM—11:00AM

Sam L. Cohen Hall at the JCA, 1342 Congress St, Portland ME 04102

Advanced Beginners Pickleball Course, Session 1

Oct 10, 2023 11:00AM—12:00PM

JCA of Southern Maine, 1342 Congress St., Portland ME 04102