Goering’s neice still making amends

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First she fled home. Then she had her tubes tied. Now she’s coming to Israel.

It’s all part of the atonement process for the grand-niece of notorious Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy. The Associated Press has a feature on Bettina Goering’s upcoming visit to the Jewish state and her quest for to cleanse herself of her family’s tarnished past.

She’ll be visiting Ashkelon, where a documentary film about her relationship with a child of Holocaust survivors, “Bloodlines,” is being screened at the Jewish Eye film festival.

“Bloodlines” records Goering’s emotional encounters with Ruth Rich, an Australian artist whose brother was murdered by the Nazis and whose parents emerged broken from the Holocaust. The film has aired in Australia and will be screened next at the Boston Jewish Film Festival.

Goering, in an interview, said it was only thanks to her meetings with Rich, where she faced the pain of an angry victim, that she was finally able to break through from a guilt-ridden life.

“I looked into the darkest darkness and there is nothing left to fear. I finally released it,” she said. “It was the deepest kind of therapy you could do.”

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