Auschwitz Lullaby: A Novel
Helene Hannemann is a German wife and mother living in Berlin in 1943 when the German police appear with orders from the SS. They have no orders for Helene; she may remain at home and build a new life for herself—after they take away her five children and husband, all of whom are of Romani heritage. Helene refuses to abandon her children, choosing to share their fate in the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz. As a German and a trained nurse, Helene is assigned work in the camp hospital, where she encounters Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele charges her with forming a nursery school for the Romani children. Under horrendous conditions, Helene and her staff protect as many children as they can for as long as they can.
Based on historical events, Auschwitz Lullaby is a deeply moving and harrowing story of love and commitment. Helene is a hero the reader roots for and cringes with as she deals with Mengele to get her job done. Through Helene’s eyes the reader is given a layered view of Mengele. He is undoubtedly a monster, yet Helene sees humanity in him, which quite frankly, makes him all the more frightening. A one-dimensional antagonist can easily be dismissed and unreal, and one must never forget that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were real. The overall structure of the story, however, is a frame with a prologue and epilogue from the point of view of a different character. This reader was horrified to realize the character was Mengele himself. Each reader will have to decide for themselves if they appreciate Escobar’s approach. Personally, going into Mengele’s head, even if only for five pages, was completely unnecessary.
