Soutenir Margret Hefner

When my father passed away in 2005, uncomfortable truths about his wartime experiences came to light. He had held his story close during his lifetime, reluctant to go into detail about his early life — as was true of so many who survived the trauma of war. I accepted his simple explanations, albeit with frustration. I remember turning to my mother for answers instead, but she could fill in only a few gaps.

Questions — usually asked by adults when I was young — about our German-sounding surname had always unsettled my sense of identity. My father was Polish, I was his daughter, and the Germans were on the wrong side of history. What was this about?

The story my aunt, who was his younger sister, told after his death opened up a complex history. I began to understand how our family's German ancestry, despite generations of Polish identity, had profound consequences under Nazi occupation. What followed was a new understanding of my father's early life experiences and the complex and often traumatic relationship between heritage, identity and the racial policies that shaped the lives of so many during the war.

In the years since, I have been on a kind of personal pilgrimage, and a story began to take shape along the way. Though fictional, Uszka draws on real historical events and my own experiences of food, travel, and the unexpected ways we find connection across generations and cultures. It's about people I've met, and people whose stories are only now being unearthed by their families, generations later.

Perhaps because I have become so aware of how deeply the past shapes our present, I feel strongly that we must keep telling these stories. Especially in a world where so many of us are troubled by current events, we need reminding of how an entire world can be swept up in one man's destructive vision, and of the devastating consequences that can follow for generations.

I'm now working to bring the novel to completion. If you'd like to support the remaining writing time, your contribution will help me make space for the work and see this story through.