Almost a decade ago, Nina Wolff wrote a biography of her father, based upon a trove of letters he gave her shortly before he died. Now she is writing the biography of an immense building in the Schuman area of Brussels which is arguably the "White House" of the European Union: the Residence Palace.
The building figures prominently in Wolff's book about her father. It was built in 1927 as a huge residential complex with a swimming pool, a 500-seat theater and all the services of a small city. Wolff's family lived there before they began their arduous escape from Brussels to France to America from that building.
During World War II, the huge building became the headquarters of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe--Nazis took the best places for themselves in conquered countries. Because the building was full of Nazis it attracted spies adding to its lore.
Much of the original structure has been replaced by modern buildings. Notable is a building with windows from all over Europe fit together in a giant jigsaw puzzle as a symbol of the European Union bringing together all of Europe.
The book about Nina Wolff's father, his escape from Nazi-occupied France as a teenager and his service in the U.S. Army a few years later is in the book "Someday You Will Understand: My Father's Private World War II." I wrote about the book and how an Axl Rose t-shirt started a discussion about The Holocaust.
