This author delves into the traumatic experiences of childhood and complex family relationships, particularly within the context of wartime Germany. Her works examine the impact of wartime propaganda and ideology on individuals and families, often through personal experience. With precision and deep psychological insight, she uncovers the mechanisms of denial and the lingering influence of a Nazi past on subsequent generations. Her writing is often somber, yet strives for understanding and reconciliation.
Abandoned by her mother, who left to pursue a career as a camp guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, loathed by her step-mother, cooped up in a cellar, starved, parched, lonely amidst the fetid crush of her neighbours, Helga Schneider endured the horrors of wartime Berlin.
Describes without sentimentality or self-pity the author's own difficult upbringing and the raising of her own child against the background of painful confrontation of the reality of her mother. This book interweaves her family history into the interview with her mother and evokes the dreadful misery of Nazi and immediate post-war Berlin.