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40 Fascinating Facts About the Relatives of Nazis After WWII

Khalid Elhassan March 14, 2019 24 min

19. Understanding Uncle Dirck’s Crimes

Latvian Jewish women, assembled preparatory to their murder in 1941. Wikimedia

Wondering “Could my mysterious Uncle Dirck have participated in the killing of my grandfather’s family?” gnawed at Simon Pasternak. He was relieved when research showed that the dates did not fit for uncle Dirck to have been present during the killing of the author’s Jewish relatives in Latvia. However, that same research showed that Danish SS members had participated in the mass killing of Jews and other atrocities, elsewhere. As Pasternak put it: “He didn’t do it to my grandfather’s family, but he could have done it to someone else’s“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.