Ellen asked Jessica Shattuck:

I found that you explored the questions about "...how Germans could have let the Holocaust happen-- how so many could have been, at least in the beginning, enthusiastic about Hitler..." in this book, well. You also broached the subject of forgiveness. Was it intentional that you seemed to stop short of letting a character be able to forgive themselves, while not forgetting events? OR did I miss the one(s) that did?

Jessica Shattuck What an interesting question! Thank you. I try to think about that time less in terms of "forgiveness" than truthfulness and understanding. Sometimes the idea of squeezing everything through the lens of "can I-- or anyone else-- forgive this or that action?" feels like it limits our ability to understand the how and why it happened. I guess I felt that the character you are talking about (Ania?) would have felt it was not her place to forgive or not forgive herself. That she just had to be as honest with herself as possible.

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