Inheritance - the story of Monika Hertwig

[Walt's Daughter]

Born in 1945 in Bad Toelz, a small village in West Germany, Monika Hertwig grew up never knowing her father. Her father, Amon Goeth, was a former Nazi leader and commandant of the Plazsow Concentration Camp. He was executed when Monika was 1 year old.

 

Though she spent 15 years working as an admissions secretary at the University of Munich, Monika says that today, at the age of 60, her real life’s work has only just begun. Now retired, she lives a quiet life in the quaint countryside of Weissenburg, Germany with Reinhardt Hertwig, her husband of 19 years. Together, they raise their young grandson, David. He is clearly the light in Monika’s life and the reason Monika became an active participant as an advocate towards educating children about the Holocaust.

 

Monika frequently travels in order to further educate herself about the Holocaust. Most recently she traveled to Poland with a group of Israeli students and two survivors from the Auschwitz and Plaszow Concentration Camps. Monika bonded with the group, and though she says the trip was a wonderful experience, she finds it impossible to convey the horror she felt, for behind every small town in Poland, there is a mass grave.

 

At one small town just outside Krakow, the group stopped to see a small, blue memorial stone that marks the death of 800 children killed during the Holocaust. Monika’s father, Amon Goeth, was responsible for the killing of these children. It’s a horror that Monika accepts, yet still can’t comprehend. But facing this history, with such a wonderful and accepting group of young students, was a gift for her.

 

In order to reconcile the past, she feels it is her responsibility and obligation to make certain that future generations are informed about the Holocaust. She continues to educate herself and learn from survivors, so the victims are not forgotten.

 

“This is my work,” she says. “You can’t change the past, but maybe you can do something about the future.”