Author(s): Helga Schneider

World History

When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to pursue her career. In 1998, Helga receives a letter asking her to visit Traudi, now 90-years old, before she dies. Mother and daughter have met only once before since Traudi left, on a disastrous visit where Helga first learnt the terrible secret of her mother's past. Traudi was as an extermination guard in Auschwitz and Ravensbruck and was also involved in Nazi 'medical 'experiments on prisoners. She has never expressed even the slightest remorse for her actions, yet Helga still hopes that at this final meeting she will find some way to forgive her mother. This extraordinary, frank account of Helga's last meeting with her mother is desperately sad and extraordinarily powerful. She describes without sentimentality her own difficult upbringing and vividly evokes the misery of Nazi Berlin. Her book provides a terrifying insight into the psyche of an otherwise unremarkable woman whose life was given a seemingly unshakable sense of purpose and fulfilment by the most evil and repellent aspects of the Third Reich.