Let Me Go

March 8, 2004
Schneider, who was born in Poland in 1937 and grew up in Berlin, shares the last encounter with her mother in Austria, after decades of separation, as readers become privy to her complex autobiography. In 1941, when Schneider was four, her mother abandoned her, her brother and her father to join the SS army in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and visited the family only once after leaving. Thirty years later, working as a writer in Italy, Schneider learns of the old woman's quickly deteriorating health and decides—albeit hesitantly—to pay her a visit. Schneider attempts to reconcile her ambivalent emotions toward a mother who unfalteringly announces, "Well, my daughter, like it or not, I have never regretted being a member of the Waffen SS, is that clear?" Schneider's first-person narration fluidly alternates between her inner thoughts and the conversation she has with her mother, and she's open about her overwhelming desire to come to terms with the convoluted circumstances of her youth. Schneider's voice is honest, and it's easy to understand the rapidly changing emotions that flow throughout: her panic attacks prior to the re-encounter, her desire to both forgive and physically harm her mother, her simple need to understand the truth. In the end, it's unclear whether the visit concretized Schneider's feelings toward her mother. She understands this situation doesn't have any one correct emotion and demonstrates this with explicit details of the conversation and what she felt at the time. The simple certainty of Schneider's pain, strength and intricate emotions resounds well after this story ends.

Helga Schneider recounts in chilling detail her 1998 visit with her mother, an unrepentant Nazi who abandoned her family in 1941 to join the Nazi SS and become a guard and torturer in the concentration camps. The story will bring tears to most listeners' eyes. Schneider, who saw her mother once in the intervening years, conveys her utter horror that her mother could be such a thoroughly vicious and repugnant person. Barbara Rosenblat's reading is astounding, and as she did in her award-winning performance of The Nazi Officer's Wife, she demonstrates her brilliance at bringing the written word to audio. When Rosenblat reads Schneider's mother's words, the listener is chilled by the evil in her voice, and when she reads Schneider's words, the listener feels the anger and confusion that permeate the book. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine