Vanessa Springora, writer: “There isn't much difference between a pedophile and a fascist”
When he empties the apartment where his father lived, his heart skips a beat. In some drawers, he finds two photos of his paternal grandfather with Nazi symbols, an effigy of Pétain, a photo of Hitler, and an Iron Cross.
The one delving into the past is Vanessa Springora (Paris, 1972), author of The Name of the Father (Lumen/Empúries; translated into Spanish by Noemí Sobregués), an obsessive investigation into her ancestors following that discovery. Until then, Grandfather Josef had been a "perfect" grandfather, and a hero to everyone: a Czechoslovakian refugee who escaped from the Wehrmacht he was forcibly recruited into, and who had settled in France.
Discovering later that the surname Springora—of false Slavic origin—is a forgery of the German Springer, and that she was part of the Berlin police force, all of this will subject Vanessa to an identity crisis.
The Name of the Father is her second book. In 2020, she published Consent . It was a resounding success, with more than 300,000 copies sold. “There's a chronological connection between the two books,” she explains in an interview in Barcelona, “because my father, Patrick, died four days after Consent was published.”
He talked about my father in 'Consent', and at first I thought he had committed suicide when I read it.”
"She talked about him, and at first I thought she'd committed suicide when I read it." That's not the case, even though she pointed this out in black and white due to his failure to protect her from the sexual abuse she suffered as a 14-year-old teenager at the hands of renowned writer Gabriel Matzneff, who was 47.
But there's more than just a chronological connection. "In both books, I find impostures, stories that were falsified," the writer explains. Because after revealing Matzneff's identity, she now knows that her grandfather had a Nazi past, and because, upon emptying that apartment, she discovers that his angry, unbalanced, mythomaniac, far-right, lying, and narcissistic father, who has abused his three wives, has hidden his homosexuality. From everyone, but especially from his father, who, as a Nazi, would never have accepted him.
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Here Springora points out a third link between The Name of the Father and Consent : “Matzneff in the first book, and the grandfather and father in the second, are very similar figures, because ultimately, there isn't much difference between a pedophile and a fascist, in the sense that they deny others; they have the same inability to see suffering in their fellow human beings, whether they be children, adolescents, or, in the case of a Nazi, the disabled, homosexuals, or people of other ethnicities.” “I don't know if it's the same for the outside reader, but for me this connection is visceral, almost organic,” he adds.
The heart of the book, however, lies in its extrapolation of the male characters—father and grandfather—to current global events. For Springora, fascism and virility are closely linked. “Fascism has always been a response to the threat to masculinity,” he asserts, “and it is still surprising to see, whether during World War II or today, how LGBT communities are persecuted, whether in Russia or, as is beginning to happen now, in the United States.”
Vanessa Springora, who publishes 'The Name of the Father'
Xavi Jurio / Own“I'm trying to understand why every time an authoritarian power returns, it starts by persecuting homosexuals,” Springora adds.
Be that as it may, returning to the author's personal terrain, The Name of the Father becomes an investigation in which Springora ends up showing some indulgence toward her father. Just a bit. She is the daughter who understands that her own father was a son, and that her inability, Patrick's, to be a father perhaps stems from her own father, Josef. But she also leaves all doors open as to why Josef joined the Nazi ranks. Because the documents certify the steps taken, but not the motivations. That is, whether he became a Nazi out of conviction or pretended to be one to escape death. The book contains almost more hypotheses than certainties.
All these doubts, however, do not prevent Springora from keeping her surname. “It is Springer, not Springora, who bears the stain of his complicity in Nazi crimes,” the author affirms. In fact, she feels as if, deep down, Grandfather Josef had given her a gift: “It was to protect us, his descendants, that he gave us a name that was not his own.” “This surname, Springora, is a bit like a magic slate, which allowed him to erase things, but also to leave a blank horizon for those who would bear it later,” she concludes.
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