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Speaker
Charlie Scheidt in conversation with Kat Rohrer
5 October 2026, 3:00PM - 04:30 PM
Please join us for a book talk about Inheritance: Love, Loss, and the Legacy of the Holocaust. The event will include a book talk by co-authors Charlie Scheidt and Kat Rohrer followed by a reception with an opportunity for book signing. The event is co-sponsored by the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Austrian Cultural Forum, LBI London, and Rutgers University Press.
Inheritance is the story of two very different German-Jewish families, uprooted by the Holocaust and war, scattered across two continents, and re-formed in America. It is the story of how a person sets about rebuilding a family history after an unspeakable trauma and ends up building community.
Scheidt, with Rohrer, debuts with a powerful tribute to his family’s experiences during the Holocaust, born from the letters and documents he uncovered after his mother passed away. ‘My mother had bequeathed these stories to me, and the voices of the dead were waiting to be heard,’ he writes, revealing the lives of his Jewish family of German descent during the Second World War while spotlighting how their legacy was shaped by persecution and displacement. His unusual partnership with Rohrer—whose grandfather abandoned his family to join the Nazi Army—symbolizes the book’s profound exploration of complex familial, national, and political ties, made starkly real by the letters and records that bring ordinary people—who lived through extraordinary terror—to vivid life.
– Publishers Weekly
Charlie Scheidt was born in New York City to parents who had escaped Nazi-occupied Europe. Growing up in a close-knit, German-Jewish refugee community, Charlie witnessed firsthand the traumatic effects of persecution and exile. Following his father’s untimely death, Charlie stepped in to lead Roland Foods, the business his parents had founded, honoring their legacy and growing it into the leading imported specialty food company. After nearly five decades as CEO, Charlie retired and turned his focus to supporting universities and NGOs that advocate for refugee rights.
Kat Rohrer is an award-winning filmmaker, born and raised in Vienna, Austria, who has produced and directed numerous narrative films and documentaries. Kat’s feature-length documentary Back to the Fatherland had theatrical releases in Austria, Germany, and the United States and has aired on TV in Austria, Sweden, Germany, and Israel. In 2023, Kat attended the Torino Next Series Lab and HerArts Film Lab with her upcoming projects, and in 2024, following its world premiere at the BFI Flare Film Festival, her latest narrative feature, What a Feeling, was screened at over thirty-five film festivals worldwide and played in theaters across Europe. She is currently in the early stages of developing a film inspired by Inheritance.
Books will be available for sale at the event.
