Helga Schneider

Visited the Fair Oaks Public Library this on Tuesday and discovered a book I will most likely not have time to read: Helga Schneider's "Let Me Go," published in 2004 by Walker Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8027-1435-8.

"Let me go" by Helga Schneider has, for its epigraph, the words of Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz death camp: "The feeling of hatred has always been alien to me." When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to work as an extermination guard in Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. In 1998, Helga received a letter asking her to visit her mother, then 90 and about to die. She had met her mother only once before this, when Helga had first learnt the facts about her mother’s past. This slim book is about these two meetings, and about the nature of parental damage and how forgiveness might come, if at all.

The Telegraph, Calcutta, India

Curious to see how the interaction played out between them and if she was able to find any compassion for herself and her mother. It's hard for me to fathom understanding what fears or desparation drive people to such extremities. As a friend tells me repeatedly, people are infinitely maleable, even to get them to do violence of such magnitude and efficiency. *shivers*

Ms. Schneider has a new book just published in Italy (where she resides) with a picture of her at age 10 with Adolph Hitler on the cover, entitled, "I Was A Little Guest of Hitler," by Einaudi Press.