Shankar Vedantam

Yeah.

Talk about that tension, Leslie.

When we come back, what happens when you learn that someone has been keeping a secret from you?

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Keeping a secret can gnaw at you.

Leslie John at Harvard University has found that it can harm our physical and mental health and damage our relationships.

Leslie, I'd like to talk a bit about family secrets.

Hanno is from Germany.

The last time Hanno saw his maternal grandfather alive, his grandfather hinted that he had a shocking secret, that he was an officer in the Nazi forced labor service during the Holocaust, and that he had witnessed or even joined in the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

So Leslie, Hanno went on to say how troubled he is by learning the secret.

He now feels a terrible sense of responsibility for the actions of his family members, people who are long since deceased.

Hanno is obviously not responsible for the actions of his grandfather.

Would he have been better off not learning this terrible secret?

In some ways, Hanno's story reminds me that there are some secrets that are actually held not by just individuals and not just by families, but by entire groups of people.

I want to stay with Hanno's story for a second.

I'm struck by the fact that many Germans to this day, you know, still feel the shame of the Holocaust.

Many keep secrets like Hanno's family does.