It was
emotionally difficult to read this book. Mario Escobar turned the true-life
story of Helene Hannemann into a personal diary he imagined she could have
written had she had the means to do so.
When we read what millions of families endured
during the Holocaust as a result of Hitler’s abuse of power and rage, the small
moments of one’s life acquire a new dimension of greatness.
Mario
Escobar imagined that Helene’s Hannemann last words on her diary were the
following:
“Blessed daily life, may nothing break you, nothing wound you, nothing deny your beauty and the sweet strokes you paint in our souls.” Soon she would walk toward her death while singing a lullaby to her children.
Despite the lessons of history,
humanity is still assailed by the monsters of hatred. Humanity still faces the
abuse of power of dictators who have no respect for life while claiming
otherwise.
Helene Hannemann
You may wonder who Helene Hannemann was. She
was a German woman who married a man considered to belong to a different race. Unlike
her family, Helene was considered a “purebreed” by the Nazis, so for a while
her family was spared. Her husband, Johann, was Romani, but the Germans used
the word Gypsy or tzigane to refer to him. His entire family had been deported
to Poland, and they had never heard from them again.
Johann
was a violin virtuoso. He had played for years in the Berlin Philharmonic, but
since 1936, the restrictions against everyone who did not fit into the Nazi
Party’s social laws had grown much harsher.
Helene was a nurse. She was heading to work
one day, when the German Police showed up to take her children and her husband
away from her. Helene Hannemann refused to separate from them, so she was taken
too.
Their destination would be Auschwitz. Fiercely
protective of her five children and of those around them, Helene had to endure the
deprivations and violence of a place whose conditions had been created by the
evils of hatred.
Scapegoating and hatred fueled deportations,
family separations, forced labor, and torture. Hitler convinced the Germans
that he would get rid of people who were like “vermin.” Hitler said they were
poisoning German blood.
Helene’s husband was forced to separate from Helene and their children. They had to join different concentration camps.
The Nazis liked to tear families apart.
Jewish people, Gypsies, gays, and dissidents were imprisoned.
The Nazis considered that people with disabilities were a burden to society, so they murdered them systematically.
The Nazis claimed to be fighting against communism. Hitler and his Nazi followers used “patriotic” emotions to justify their evil behaviors and persecuted those who disagreed with them. Hate crimes were common under Hitler’s authoritarian regime. His dictatorship was fueled by the hatred and distrust he promoted through his speeches and lies.
Under
Hitler’s influence German people followed a pattern of bullying against those
who were different. The hostility toward Jews and other groups of people led to
the formation of concentration camps where people were starved and abused. The
groups of people mentioned above were imprisoned and/or enslaved to serve
Hitler’s regime. Hitler referred to them as “vermin.”
The SS
officers tried to create a sense of false reassurance among the Gypsy people at
times by making them believe that Hitler’s goal was to fight against communism,
and that Gypsies would be treated differently.
The nursery school at the Gypsy camp
Due to her German ethnicity, Helene was given some privileges. At Mengele’s request, she committed herself to organizing a nursery school at one of the Gypsy camps. This special task enabled her to deal with the suffering and empowered her to give others hope despite the shortage of food, water and the lack of sanitation. The people were tormented by diseases and had to endure the extremes of temperature. They knew the Nazis would not hesitate to murder them if they became sick. They lived under the threat of being taken away to be murdered.
Helene managed to create a space of comfort
and love for the children amid the devastating conditions of the camp. This
nursery school was open from May 1943 through August 1944. At least 22,000
thousand Gypsies were slaughtered by the Nazis.
The cruelty of the Nazis never extinguished
the light of Helene’s bravery and love. Till the last moment of her life,
Helene was able to sustain the forces of hope and love for her family and the
prisoners with whom she had to interact.
Helene even said she would refuse to hate her enemies because by succumbing to hate, she would resemble them; she did not want to turn into a monster. Therefore, she chose to hold onto her dignity instead. This choice requires inner strength and resilience, but it also takes courage.
I dare say this choice relies on a kind of intelligence that bullies lack.
Her courage made Josef Mengele uncomfortable. It made him doubt himself.
The only Holocaust survivor from this book was Elisabeth Guttenberger, a Jewish woman who may have provided details for the story.
Nazis and the treatment of women
Nazis wanted women to be obedient and follow commands without questioning anything. They wanted German women to marry and have many children, so the Nazis banned abortion and contraception in German women. It goes without saying that banning abortion had nothing to do with honoring life. It has been associated with a desire to control and manipulate women’s lives. This is a clear feature of their ideology. Mark Robinson, a MAGA Republican who labeled himself as a “black Nazi” admitted that he had paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion in the past. Yet he fiercely supported banning abortion without any exceptions. Similarly, Donald Trump has complimented Hitler’s regime by saying that “Hitler did a lot of good things.” In fact, his ex-wife Ivana reported in 1990 that Donald Trump kept a book of Hitler’s collected speeches in his bedside cabinet.Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that Donald Trump and Vance spread so many false rumors to vilify immigrants and stoke hate. This is what Adolf Hitler did. Trump simply follows his playbook.
Research has shown that immigrants in America are less likely to commit crimes. Extensive research shows that immigration does NOT lead to more crime. Yet Trump and Vance keep repeating a false narrative to ignite hate toward immigrants.
Hitler knew that if he repeated a lie several times,
people would eventually start to believe it. Trump and Vance follow Hitler’s strategy. Strangely enough, some of his fans are eager to believe and
swallow anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. (Some of those followers were
even happy to swallow disinfectant during the pandemic to treat COVID because
it was Trump’s suggestion). Again, I am not joking. This happened during
Trump’s presidency and you can verify the information here.
Like
Hitler, Trump has referred to his opponents as “communists” and “vermin.” Like
Hitler, he insists that migrants are poisoning the blood of America.
The truth is that Hitler was nothing but a very insecure man; he was just a coward. Do I need to say more?
When the government forces itself into the private realm of women’s healthcare, it follows the Nazi ideology, which viewed women as walking incubators and objects to be used for sexual pleasure. There is no genuine concern for their health and safety. Trump’s presidency had devastating consequences for women because it led to the overturning of Roe v Wade. In states with abortion restrictions maternal mortality is higher. This is a fact.
Amber Thurman and Candi Miller are examples of women who died as a consequence of overturning Roe v Wade, a change facilitated by Trump through his choice of judges for the Supreme Court. Trump took credit for overturning Roe v Wade, and said he was proud of it… how can anybody support a convicted felon who is proud of letting the government meddle with women’s healthcare? It is incomprehensible to me. The next step will be to scapegoat healthcare professionals because Trump’s strategy is to scapegoat and ignore facts. He lies continuously. How can anybody even believe that he supports freedom and ethical values?
Let’s hope that history serves an important
purpose: to learn from the past and avoid making the same mistakes.
Conclusion
Auschwitz Lullaby shows what the worst of humanity can do. It can be used as a warning. It is a wake-up call to choose human dignity instead of hate. Helene’s life is an example of that.
I liked The
Librarian of Auschwitz even more than this one, but I think both books can help
us to understand the dangers of empowering a bully. Reading these books is an
immersive experience. It is effective in exposing the horrors of the Holocaust.
It is
going to be a year since the horrifying terrorist attack by Hamas took place.
The fact that some people have justified this brutality shocks me, but it also helps
me to understand that there are people out there who are okay with Nazi
strategies and tactics. There are also those who choose to deny the Holocaust
of October 7. They deny the rapes and the atrocities committed by Hamas, but
their denial does not wipe out the truth. The suffering it has caused will not
be forgotten. The repercussions of that massacre continue to haunt the world,
triggering more wars and violence.
Those of us who believe in democracy and human
rights will continue to speak up against atrocities and vote for candidates who
oppose bullies.
Let’s not forget the hostages and the
struggles of the families honoring their loves ones while trying to seek
justice. I cannot even start to imagine the desperation of being in such a
situation. I am sharing a recent speech by Noa Tishby here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUSIeL7ZUo&rco=1
Supplementary links:
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/controlling-everyday-life/women/
https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/sinti-and-roma-in-auschwitz/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/10659129221111081
https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/mythical-tie-between-immigration-and-crime
https://forward.com/fast-forward/615880/donald-trump-hitler-nazi-references/
https://sph.tulane.edu/study-finds-higher-maternal-mortality-rates-states-more-abortion-restrictions
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/17/politics/kfile-mark-robinson-abortion-ban-no-exceptions/index.html
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/housing-prices-forced-deportation-immigration-rcna174048
Mario Escobar has a licentiate’s degree in history and an advanced studies diploma in modern history. He has written numerous books about the Inquisition, the Catholic Church, the age of the Protestant Reformation, and religious sects.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to
read my reviews on the following books:
Life Went onAnyway by Oleg Sentsov
