I – 10 – Living in the denial – perpetrator families

 Living in the denial – perpetrator families

As a child in a space of repression, one does develop a sense that one is being lied to, but one still has no access to reality or to the truth. The lie can exist as a lie in and of itself as long as it remains unrefuted. The violent reality behind it remains hidden. That is its purpose, and it achieves that, at least initially. In J.’s stories, the victims of German mass crimes during the Nazi era did not appear. The violent reality of the crimes and the lies must have seemed like fiction to the child. Yet there was once a world for the child where life was still real.