Auschwitz Lullaby

Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar

     Well, there is nothing happy about this book, we all know what Auschwitz was, so don’t go looking for that.  Instead read this to learn something new about the place.  We should always be looking to learn more about this place. There are always new levels.

     This is the story of Helene Hannemann.  Helene was full blooded Aryan German but she fell in love with a Romani man.  We know the Romani more commonly as Gypsies. Helene and Johann had five children and led a good life until the Reich started narrowing their lives down with restrictions.

      Helene was a nurse, her husband a musician.  One day the SS come to take them away.  We know about this part, the trains, the struggle to maintain a speck of dignity, the camp, the struggle to stay alive.  When the camp command finds out Helene is full blooded acceptable German, she is invited by Dr. Mengele – yes, him – to open and run a kindergarten for the children in the Romani camp. She accepts his offer because it gives her a purpose, it gives her some small advantages for her own children, it gives some small advantages for the Romani children and thus a little longer thread of hope to survive. But she also comes to realize that her nursery Kindergarten is a feeder for Dr. Mengele’s experiments. 

     Helene’s story is true, she did exist, she did run the nursery, she did work for Mengele but only for the time and advantages it offered to the children. But, she knew full well what happens when you dance with the devil.