Let Me Go - Softcover

Schneider, Helga

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099443740 ISBN 13: 9780099443742

Publisher: Vintage, 2005

Synopsis

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 daughter have met only once after 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 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.

About this title

Review:

"A powerful, painful book about moral responsibility" (Guardian)

"Remarkable... Helga Schneider's frank account is desperately sad and powerful. Unforgettable" (Jewish Telegraph)

"Frightening and fascinating" (Mail on Sunday)

"Let Me Go grips the reader completely" (Glasgow Herald)

"The book evocatively portrays the deprivations of wartime Berlin and the devastating emotional impact of one evil individual" (Irish Times)

From the Publisher:

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A BBC PAGETURNER

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0099443740
• ISBN 13: 9780099443742
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160