"I''m seeing you again after twenty-seven years, Mother, and wondering whether in all that time you have understood how much
damage you did to your children." So begins Helga Schneider''s ripping memoir of reconnecting with her mother after years of bitterness, incomprehension, and disgust.
Schneider, a native of Poland, was abandoned by her mother when she was only four years old. Unbeknownest to her at the time, Helga''s mother left to fulfill her "patriotic" duty of serving Hitler''s regime. Her mom joins the SS, working in the infamous
concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
After the war, and the passing of a few decades, Helga learns that her mother is sick, and with an almost debilitating mixture of emotions, she decides to connect once again. But if Helga were looking for her mother''s repentance and regret, she would be, and was, sorely disappointed. The elderly woman seems to be oblivious to her daughter''s turmoil about her mother''s role in the
holocaust. The mother even, in a moment of ironic generosity, offers to her daughter a heaping handful of gold jewelry, presumably artifacts from long-dead Jewish prisoners.
With such a reception, it is no wonder that Helga continues to remain emotionally torn in regards to her mother. On a later occasion, her mother reverts between childish, endearing behavior, and screeching, angry outbursts. The reader, along with the author, feel this disconnect and have trouble figuring how to reconcile it.
Helga''s writing style is simple and straightforward. But the fluidity and honesty in her words are far more gripping than grandeoise prose. Her books is a fascinating exploration into one woman''s attempt to make peace with a woman who betrayed not only her family, but humankind as well.