Auschwitz Lullaby, by Mario Escoabar (2018)
This novel is based on the true life of Helene Hannemann, a German housewife who married a Roma and had five children. One morning in early 1943, the German police arrived at her door to take her husband and children away. Although, because she was German and was eligible to stay safe, she couldn’t leave her husband and family. They were told they were being sent to a relocation camp for Gypsies. Instead, they were loaded onto cattle cars and shipped to Auschwitz.
Helene and her husband (called Johann in the book, although his name was actually Max) were separated. The children, all under the age of 12, were allowed to stay with Helene in the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz. They were separated from the Jewish population and received marginally better treatment.
Because she was a trained nurse, Helene was soon recruited into the camp hospital. There she encountered Josef Mengele. Partially to impress his higher-ups, Mengele appointed Helene to create a nursery school for the Romani children. She is given paint, toys, school supplies and food for the nursery school. She was also allowed to select some assistants to help with the children to give them as care-free a childhood as possible. As the War continues, food for the nursery becomes scarcer and Helene encounters Mengele’s wrath when she asks for more.
This novel takes place in the span of about a year. It gives a glimpse of the horrors of living in the concentration camp from the point of the Romani. The book, however, was bookended, by reflections by Dr. Mengele. Perhaps it was an attempt to “humanize” him, but I found it very disturbing.
Read: April 6, 2021
3.5 Stars
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