Let Me Go

by Helga Schneider

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143035177
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.2" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Riveting, Irritating, Amazing

I heard this book on audio, read by the great Barbara Rosenblatt. I found this book because I was looking for books she narrates. This is one of the most profound books I've ever encountered. The balance of hatred and love. The longing for love. The unremitting digging by Helga at a mother who is both helpless and sadistic. As Helga is, too. I said "irritating," because I got really annoyed at the "why didn't you love me, mother?" repeated over and over in different ways. I wanted to say, "Oh, get a life." There was a certain amount of melodrama I got tired of. But the honesty was stunning and the ambiguity totally captivating. The descriptions of the people and places are marvelous. I want to take issue with readers who complain about not knowing which camps the mother worked at. Helga provides endless details and digs for more. Her obsessive research is one of the best things about this book. There is no factual info missing. This is a picture, closeup, of a woman whose life lacked meaning (the mother) until she found a belief and a home in the SS and somebody to hate -- the Jews. It gives new meaning to the idea of a woman's leaving home to "find herself." She found herself quite contentedly in hell. And her daughter deals with it all both intellectually and emotionally with amazing insight. Wow. This book is going to haunt me for a long time.

You Must 'Hear' This Book

i just finished the audio version of 'Let Me Go.' Over the course of a lifetime, thanks to countless tv documentaries, books, movies, museums exhibitions, etc., we're aware and informed of so much that occurred in the death camps during the Holocaust. We have heard many barbaric specifics before or at least enough to extrapolate much of the rest; much of it is not a surprise or revelation, per se, but more than half a century later in this story, the truths of the Holocaust still shock. Can you call an audio book a 'page turner?' What sets this book apart in this audio version, is it's no-holds-barred, accounting straight from the mouth of a former female Nazi SS guard, the mother of the author, Helga Schneider. The author's rollercoaster of emotions and pain is pitiful and incredibly moving enough and in Rosesnblat's hands, the mother's undiminished hatred is so palpable; she is vile, repulsive, and totally unrepentant. This book speaks to the pathological motivations and complicity of that time. This is the voice of one woman and it is the voice of many. The question has been asked incessantly, by so many as to render it trite; 'How could this have happened?' In this book, in these words, and especially in this superb reading, you sit there and say to yourself, "This is how such a thing can happen."

A Brave and Honest Memoir

I was spellbound by this book! Helga Schneiders honesty and courage for writing about her painful past is quite admirable. Her mother was a frightening figure full of hate and had a complete lack of compassion. She abandons her children to become a concentration camp guard and even fifty years later still has no regrets. It must be horribly painful to have such a amoral parent, but in the context of a horrible war one can imagine how difficult it must have been. I do not see this as Holocust literature as some have said, but more about a daughter trying to understand how she could have been given birth by such an evil person. I think it is an important piece of work. Thank you Helga Schneider it really made an impact on me.

Unnerving though slight

Helga Schneider talks courageously and agonisingly about a subject near and dear to most people: her mother. Her short tale is both gut-wrenching and powerful. Schneider's story is not only about her mother but also her own painful journey. Her's is a tale of humanity in the face of unassailable evil.

One of the bravest books I've read...

I have read a few books in my life that I consider incredibly brave. This is one of them. To expose to the world what her mother did; to face her own horror and shame because she cannot help loving - and loathing - her own flesh and blood - this book is a great sacrifice for mankind. The writer has opened her veins to let us see evil as it exists in her own mother! It is the ultimate truth-telling about what happened in Nazi concentration camps: the suffering, the vile participation in genocide by the German people; men - and, yes, women. "Thank you!" to this author for the gift, difficult as it was to read - to witness what she had to go through to get the truth - and that searing truth itself.