In 1960, Scott Kellner abandoned his naval post in Germany to look for his grandparents. Assuming they were Nazis, Kellner was prepared to forgive them in exchange for the joy of meeting them. But to his surprise, the parents of his estranged father had nearly lost their lives speaking out against Hitler.
At their initial meeting, Kellner used a pocket dictionary to translate the cover of a notebook his grandfather showed him: Mein Widerstand (“My Resistance,” “My Opposition”). Through rudimentary communication, his grandfather explained that the diary, begun after his two public trials in 1940, was the first of a ten-volume collection of dated entries and newspaper clippings that constituted The Friedrich Kellner Diaries. Fearful for his life, Friedrich Kellner had ferreted away the diaries in a secret chamber. They would never be hidden again, however.
Upon receiving the diaries in 1968, Kellner made a vow to his grandfather: “My promise was to bring the diaries to the attention of the public,” explains Kellner. “I was to use the diaries as a weapon against the resurgence of Nazismย
and the tyranny that destroyed the lives of 50 million people.”
Four decades later, Kellner — who, by the way, is a high school dropout-turned-university professor — has followed his grandfather’s instructions to realize this vow. Nearly every Holocaust museum in the world is hotly pursuing Kellner’s historic diaries and the photographs that narrate his grandparents’ resistance. Today, see the original Sรผtterlin-scripted German diaries with translations and family photographs.
May 18-Aug. 13
This article appears in May 18-24, 2006.