APRIL 1963: I come home at 10pm and there is an ambulance outside. I go into the flat and two ambulance men carry the limp body of my grandfather into another room and put him on the sofa. They use a bandage to keep his jaw in place. They fold his hands over his stomach. My grandfather's skin is yellow, only his lips are blueish. On the table lie his watch, his glasses and his rings.

OCTOBER 1963: I meet the love of my life at Columbia Law School in New York: a painter, the daughter of an orthodox Jewish rabbi. Our relationship fails when I return to Germany because she is not prepared to set foot on German soil.