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40 Fascinating Facts About the Relatives of Nazis After WWII

Khalid Elhassan March 14, 2019 24 min

17. Coming to Terms With Uncle Dirck

Simon Pasternak’s ‘Death Zones’. Pinterest

Pasternak’s research of uncle Dirck left him with more questions than answers, so in an attempt to find some closure, the Danish author turned to his stock in trade, and decided to write a novel. In Death Zones, Pasternak pictured a German police detective operating behind the lines on the Eastern Front, where, absurdly, the German criminal code was in force. It took him three years to finish the story, which began with a rusty old suitcase, just like the one Pasternak had discovered as a child.

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.