Uncovering a family's secret Nazi past

What would you do if you knew that your father fought for the Nazis? For years, Alexander Wolff harbored this dark family secret. Wolff, a staff writer for Sports Illustrated for more than three decades, longed to know more about his family’s role in Nazi Germany. Was his father, Niko Wolff, involved in the worst Nazi crimes, including the extermination of Jews? How did Niko hide the fact that he was part Jewish? How else was his family involved in the war? In 2017, Wolff left Sports Illustrated and moved with his family from their home in Cornwall, Vt., to Germany, where he spent a year probing his family’s secrets. He also wanted to learn more about his grandfather, Kurt Wolff, a young German Jewish publisher who published renowned authors including Franz Kafka and Joseph Roth before fleeing the Nazis and coming to New York, where he founded Pantheon Books, a highly regarded publishing house. Alex Wolff’s tumultuous family saga is the subject of his new book, Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home. He is also the author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama and is the former owner of the semi-pro Vermont basketball team the Frost Heaves.