'I was born in Sydney in 1985 and I grew up there with a vague sense of my German heritage and the silences around it. I knew my grandfather, Achim Muhlen-Schulte, had disappeared and I was aware of the mark his absence left on my family. I remember Anzac Days at school where I told my friends’ grandparents that my German grandfather had also served, and watching faces fall as they realised he did not fight for Australia. And I remember a scratchy, old, grey wool blanket amongst the family bed linen that I was told my grandfather had sent back from the war.' (Introduction)