Tell us about the inspiration for At the Wolf's Table.
In September , while reading an Italian newspaper, I found a brief article about Margot W&#;lk, Hitler's last living food taster. She was 96 years old and it was the first time she had confessed her experience; she had kept it a secret her whole life. In the interview, she said she had never been a Nazi, but had been forced by the SS to become a food taster because she had moved to her parents-in-law's house when a bomb destroyed her apartment in Berlin, where she was born. Her husband was fighting on the Russian front, and her in-laws lived in a country village very close to the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters hidden in the forest.
W&#;lk and other young women were recruited to taste Hitler's food and check whether it was poisoned. She described the tasters' meals as very distressing moments, as a real nightmare, but she also remembered how delicious and fresh the food was. I felt that this contradiction represented the contradiction of her role: she was a victim being forced to risk life and limb three times a day just by eating, but she was also guilty, because she was working for Hitler, an inhuman, evil person. That's why I was struck by her story and
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