After her mother’s death, Gabrielle Robinson found diaries her grandfather had kept while serving as doctor in Berlin 1945—only to discover that her beloved Api had been a Nazi. Api’s Berlin Diaries offers a first hand and personal perspective on the far reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich and the author’s own inconvenient past.

Moving and provocative, Robinson’s award winning memoir shows her grandfather’s work as doctor in the devastated Berlin of 1945. But his diary also reveals that her beloved Api had been a member of the Nazi party. Confronting her family’s past, she reflects on German guilt as well as all our political responsibility. Her memoir also is a tribute to Api with who gave her the first stable home. Readers come away with compassion for Api’s struggles and a renewed awareness of our common humanity.

Perhaps it’s a sign of having found a home at last that Gabrielle has won a number of local and statewide awards for her writing and community engagement.

The lingering questions her story raises: Can it happen now? What would we do if it did -- how could we demonstrate resistance? What about the disheartening events of our own pasts? You'll hear it here with Gabrielle Robinson on Dropping In.