Let Me Go: My Mother and the SS - Softcover
A powerful memoir in which Helga Schneider describes her relationship and final encounter with her mother, a former SS guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In 1998, Schneider is summoned to her 90 year-old mother’s nursing home in Vienna. The last time she has seen her mother is 27 years earlier. Then, she had asked her to try on her treasured SS uniform, and wanted to give her several items of jewellery, the loot of holocaust victims, which Schneider rejected. Prior to that meeting, the last time she had seen her mother was in 1941, when she was four. Her mother abandoned her family in order to pursue her career with the SS.
During the conversation in Vienna, Schneider establishes that from the women’s camp at Ravensbruck, her mother had moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was in charge of a “correction” unit where brutal torture was administered. She was also involved with gas chambers and lethal injections. She was close to the highest echelons of Nazi power and knew all the details of Nazi atrocities, which she considered, and still considers, to be legitimate. Her mother continues to regard her former prisoners as the sub-human inferiors predicated by Nazi ideology. Without self-pity, Helga Schneider skillfully interweaves her family history into the interview with her mother, describing her difficult upbringing and the raising of her own child against the background of the reality of her mother’s past.
From the Hardcover edition.
In 1998, Schneider is summoned to her 90 year-old mother’s nursing home in Vienna. The last time she has seen her mother is 27 years earlier. Then, she had asked her to try on her treasured SS uniform, and wanted to give her several items of jewellery, the loot of holocaust victims, which Schneider rejected. Prior to that meeting, the last time she had seen her mother was in 1941, when she was four. Her mother abandoned her family in order to pursue her career with the SS.
During the conversation in Vienna, Schneider establishes that from the women’s camp at Ravensbruck, her mother had moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was in charge of a “correction” unit where brutal torture was administered. She was also involved with gas chambers and lethal injections. She was close to the highest echelons of Nazi power and knew all the details of Nazi atrocities, which she considered, and still considers, to be legitimate. Her mother continues to regard her former prisoners as the sub-human inferiors predicated by Nazi ideology. Without self-pity, Helga Schneider skillfully interweaves her family history into the interview with her mother, describing her difficult upbringing and the raising of her own child against the background of the reality of her mother’s past.
From the Hardcover edition.
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From the Back Cover:
Praise for Let Me Go
"For the duration of these pages, the old, mad Germany that we had thought dead comes to life again."-- J. M. Coetzee
"This stunning, profoundly evocative memoir is a bridge across time directly into the ongoing agonies of our confused, violent, searching hearts. A triumph of vivid art and emotional courage."-- Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Volumes 1 and 2
"Schneider packs a tremendous emotional punch into this brief but tremendously cathartic memoir."-- Booklist (starred review)
"The simple certainty of Schneider's pain, strength and intricate emotions resounds well after this story ends."-- Publishers Weekly
About the Author:
"For the duration of these pages, the old, mad Germany that we had thought dead comes to life again."-- J. M. Coetzee
"This stunning, profoundly evocative memoir is a bridge across time directly into the ongoing agonies of our confused, violent, searching hearts. A triumph of vivid art and emotional courage."-- Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, Volumes 1 and 2
"Schneider packs a tremendous emotional punch into this brief but tremendously cathartic memoir."-- Booklist (starred review)
"The simple certainty of Schneider's pain, strength and intricate emotions resounds well after this story ends."-- Publishers Weekly
Helga Schneider, born in 1937 in Steinberg, now in Poland, spent her childhood in Berlin. When her mother left the family in 1941 to become a concentration camp guard, Helga Schneider was brought up first by her stepmother, and then in boarding-schools. Since 1963 she has lived as a freelance writer in Bologna.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherVintage
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 0099443740
- ISBN 13 9780099443742
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages240
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Let Me Go
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ISBN 10: 0099443740
ISBN 13: 9780099443742
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 160 pages. 7.76x5.08x0.47 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # zk0099443740
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Let Me Go
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ISBN 13: 9780099443742
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Book Description Condition: New. Dieser Artikel ist ein Print on Demand Artikel und wird nach Ihrer Bestellung fuer Sie gedruckt. When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to pursue her career. In 1998, Helga received a letter asking her to visit Traudi, now 90-years old, before she dies. Mother and daughter have met only once after Traudi left, on a disastrous. Seller Inventory # 582350203
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