In 2011, Hanna Miley was invited to speak to the citizens of Gemünd, Germany on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. In 1938, the citizens of this same town had smashed in the windows of her father’s shop and burned down the synagogue. Now they were honoring a daughter of the town whom their forefathers had expelled, sending her parents to their death in Chelmo, Poland.
What would Hanna say to them? Would she express bitter anger and resentment at a lost childhood and altered life? Would she demand the return of her father’s properties, which rightly would still belong to her as her inheritance?
This recording is of what she said, translated into German for the packed gathering of 150+ who came to hear her. The next morning, she and her husband found that the town had “changed” irreversibly - lightened, become free, redeemed.
Here is a picture of the event, Hanna on the left (barely visible) with Claudia Wiedenmann translating into German on the right.
