UC Santa Barbara > History Department > Prof. Marcuse > Courses > Hist 133c Homepage > 133c Book Essays Index page > Student essay
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Issues of Responsibility and Forgiveness in Post WWII Germany Book Essay on:
Helga Schneider, Let Me Go
by Jamie Graves for Prof. Marcuse's lecture course |
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& Abstract |
and Links |
at amazon |
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About Jamie Graves
Abstract (back to top)
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Essay (back to top) Let Me Go, by Helga Schneider, is a memoir about Schneider’s last visit with her mother, a former member of the Waffen-SS who worked at Birkenau, Ravensbruck, and Auschwitz. In her memoir, Schneider asks herself whether or not she is to blame for the history of Germany during WWII. During her last visit with her mother, Schneider struggles with the issue of forgiveness: whether or not to forgive her mother for abandoning her and her family for the SS, and whether or not outsiders should forgive her for being the daughter of a Nazi. She also deals with the issue of responsibility and whether or not to solely blame either her mother’s generation, or her own generation, who grew up with parents under the control of the Third Reich. Schneider argues that those who were only children during the last years of the war, in her opinion, not to blame for the atrocities committed by their parents generation. Schneider argues that those who were in command and gave orders from above are largely at fault for the genocide that occurred in Nazi Germany. Schneider’s mother abandoned both her, her younger brother and her husband in order to serve in the SS in 1941. Upon giving birth to her son in 1971, Schneider decided to contact her mother, whom she hadn’t spoken to in many years. At that time, Schneider had long since left her home town of Vienna for Italy and decided to travel back to Vienna to visit her mother in order to let her son meet his grandmother. Schneider’s mother greeted her only grandson less than warmly and treated him with “frosty detachment, denying him the right to a grandmother” (Schneider 2). During this visit, Schneider’s mother attempted to give her a collection of gold chains, among other jewelry. Schneider realized the origins of her mother’s gift, which was jewelry stolen from Jews during WWII, and vehemently declined it. Twenty-seven years after her visit, Schneider was sent a letter informing her of her mother’s deteriorating health. She and her cousin Eva decided to make the trip back to Vienna to visit her aging mother. Before Schneider met with her mother for a second time, she was informed by her mother’s caretaker that her mother had claimed that both she and her younger brother, Peter, had died many years earlier. Shortly after convincing her mother that she was in fact her daughter, Schneider’s mother boasted about the color of her suit and how closely it resembled the color of her old SS uniform, which served as an indicator of her mother’s continued loyalty to the Reich. During Schneider’s visit, she asked many questions about her mother’s past including her involvement as a guard at Auschwitz, a doctor’s aid at Ravensbruck, and her knowledge of the methods of extermination at Birkenau. Throughout her visit, Schneider felt as if her mother was either lying to her or telling her half truths about her violent past as a guard, so she used bribery of further visits and bouquets of yellow roses to persuade her to open up about her past experiences in the SS. At the end of her visit, Schneider’s mother pleads with her to return and visit, but she intentionally leaves her mother knowing that it was the last time they would meet. As Schneider listened to her mother’s memories from WWII during her visit, Schneider intertwined stories of her own personal experiences during the war. She gave a detailed account of the night her mother left her and her family and the confusion she felt after she was abandoned. Schneider also recalled life with her stepmother, Ursula, which she referred to as “hell” on many occasions. Life with her stepmother was full of neglect and ended when Ursula sent Schneider away to a boarding school for children Schneider refers to as being “rejected by their families for various reasons”, who were often children of “failed marriages or divorced parents, orphans” or “children rejected by parents unwilling to have them in the house” (Schneider 107). She also recalled the severe lack of food during the last couple of years of the war and the struggle her grandparents went through in order to feed both her and her brother. Another event that was mentioned was her encounter with the Fuhrer himself, Hitler, and Joeseph Geobbels, the head of propaganda. After the war, Schneider and her brother were greatly discouraged by their mother from mentioning the event. One of the issues Schneider focuses on throughout the book is who to blame for the violence that occurred during the Nazi period. While Schneider doesn’t dismiss blame from individual citizens of Germany, she places a significant amount of blame on those in positions of power during the regime. One of the ways in which Schneider supported this argument was through the many examples of her mother’s undying loyalty to values common during the Nazi period. Throughout the book, Schneider’s mother emphasized values such as loyalty and honesty. When Schneider confronted her mother about abandoning her family, she stated that she “had no choice” but to leave in order to carry out the duties of the party (Schneider 63). This was due to the fact that upon becoming an SS officer, Schneider’s mother swore an oath in which she promised to “unfailingly obey: honesty, loyalty, and fidelity toward people with the same blood as yourself” (Schneider 2). When Schneider’s mother made the decision and took an active interest in politics, she went unsupported by her family and felt that obedience to the state was stronger than the taking care of her children. She stated that her children, Helga and Peter, were not motherless after she left them for the SS because “the Reich would be their mother” and “would have looked after [her] children better than any stepmother” in which case she was referring to Schneider’s stepmother, Ursula (Schneider 113). Another way in which Helga Schneider argues that those in power are largely to blame for Nazi Germany is by explaining some of the actions that took place in the concentration camps her mother worked in. One of the locations Schneider’s mother worked at was Ravensbruck. Dr. Earnst Grawitz, one of the main doctors at the facility, participated in “almost all of the experiments carried out by the SS on human guinea pigs” (Schneider 72). The doctor in charge of a these projects was Professor Karl Gebhardt. He conducted an experiment in which “prisoners were infected in the lower part of their legs, while being left in the dark about the real purpose of the interventions to which they were being subjected to” (Schneider 73). Their experiences often left few survivors and many scars. One particular experiment mentioned tied prisoners to a table, many of which were women chosen for their attractiveness, as their flesh was cut to the bone, where upon shards of glass and wood were added to the wounds and resulted in the victims dieing in terrible pain (Schneider 73). Schneider’s mother admitted to helping tie down the prisoners and “felt no compassion” in doing so (Schneider 74). Another specific event in which Schneider’s mother recalled for her daughter regarding her mission to “free Germany from that repugnant race” was her participation in overseeing the gas chambers and crematoriums. Her mother went into detail about how long the gas chambers took to kill their victims and complications that would occur from time to time, those complications being that people, especially children, would survive the gas chamber (Schneider 145). Schneider’s mother complained that “those little Miststücke, or children, were more resistant to the rat poison than the adults were,” which resulted in the survivors being thrown into the crematoriums along with the deceased (Schneider 147). These accounts given by Schneider’s mother can be seen as an example of what SS guards were ordered to do from those with even more authority than they possessed. Her mother claimed that she had “no right to feel compassion” because her “sole duty was to obey; loyalty and obedience, nothing else, loyalty as an important virtue” (Schneider 75). However, Schneider’s disgust and disbelief upon hearing her mother’s stories make it clear that she believes that people like her mother are also to blame for the genocide in Nazi Germany. This is evident in Schneider’s reaction to her mother’s indifference towards the killing of Jews and her undying loyalty to the value supporting the Final Solution: “I look at you, mother, and I feel a terrible lacerating rift within me: between the instinctive attraction for my own blood and the irrevocable rejection of what you have been, of what you still are” (Schneider 82). Another issue that Schneider addresses is the question of who is to feel guilty about the past of Nazi Germany. Schneider’s position on this issue comes up early in the book during her experience at a ceremony of the commemoration of the racial laws of 1938. She was approached by a woman survivor of Birkenau who screamed, “I hate you” after being recognized as the daughter of one of the guards at Birkenau and after yelling at Schneider, the woman fell silent and asked for forgiveness. Schneider responded: “you have nothing to ask forgiveness for, but neither do you have any accusation to level at me. I was seven and a half when the war ended” (Schneider 21). This shows that although Schneider is the daughter of a former SS guard, she does not feel that she should be associated with her mother’s past, especially because she was not present while her mother served as a guard at the concentration camps. One event that contradicts her statement claiming that the woman had “no accusation to level” occurred in 1943 near the Eden Boarding School in Oranienburg, which Schneider was attending. While with a group of schoolmates, Schneider came across a Jewish couple that had just come out of hiding that was being beaten by a group of older boys. Schneider’s schoolmates first reactions were to go back to school while another girl burst into tears at the sight of the man and women being beaten. Meanwhile, the boys called out to Schneider and her schoolmates, “come on, kids, if you’re good National Socialists, give us a hand!” (Schneider 109). Schneider and her schoolmates listened to the older boys and joined in beating the helpless couple. Although Schneider deeply regrets her actions that day, she shouldn’t have been able to claim such innocence when approached by the Birkenau survivor at the racial laws commemoration. Let Me Go addresses issues of responsibility and forgiveness that are still debated and have yet to reach a consensus today. Schneider’s final meeting with her mother exposes many of the motives behind her mother’s actions. One of her mother’s main motives was her devotion to the state along with all of its ideologies, such as anti-Semitism and the policy of no compassion when it came to Jewish extermination. Schneider argues that those in control of the state are largely to blame because those with less authority took an oath to abide by the rules and regulations with strict and unwavering obedience created by those in power. Schneider approaches the prospect of forgiveness very pessimistically and in a way that is very specific to her situation. Not only was her mother a former SS officer, her mother also abandoned her family, and remained obedient to the Nazi regime and its values. Schneider’s argument that those who were only children during the war shouldn’t be held responsible for their knowing or unknowing participation in the Third Reich appears to be flawed by her own early participation in anti-Semitism. Let Me Go argues that issues of responsibility and forgiveness are to be evaluated on an individual level, rather than on society as a whole. |
Bibliography and Links (back to top)(links last checked 6/x/07) Book Reviews: |
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Any student tempted to use this paper for an assignment in another course or school should be aware of the serious consequences for plagiarism. Here is what I write in my syllabi:
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