Injustice is everywhere, even amongst your own family because sometimes the ones closest to you can hurt you the most and they can try to understand the hurt and pain, but it may truly never be known. Though the majority of the time we never even consider family turning their back on us, both books, “Let Me Go” and “Cry, the Beloved Country” show us that lack of confrontation and injustice among family can turn things for the worst. “Let Me Go” is a deeply compelling story about the attempt to reconcile a relationship between mother and daughter. Helga Schneider is a young child in Berlin growing up amongst one of the horrifying times in history. In 1941 in Berlin, west Germany Helga’s mother abandoned her, her father, and her youngest brother.
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Helga had heard many speculations of where her mother had been and what she was doing; after very many years of not seeing her, Helga becomes interested in finding out why her mother chose to become a guard for the Nazis and if she had any regrets. After contemplating long and hard Helga decides to visit her mother in Vienna before she passes at her old age. Helga asks her mother if she regrets how she lived her life as a Nazi guard and her surprise, her mother gets convicted to a certain extent and bursts out, “It’s no fun talking to my daughter!” then trying to dismiss Helga, she sticks her fingers into her ears and shouts “I’m not listening to you anymore!” (Schneider 76) Here we see that her mother knows what she did was morally and ethically wrong, but she does not regret what she was involved in. For Helga this was very difficult to comprehend. All she wanted was to cling onto the vintage memories, but the only thing she could do was make sure she, “buried her (mother) memory in a dark recess of my mind.” (Schneider 4) How hard it must have been to have such an unsightly desire to see the woman that birthed her. Sadly, the only was Helga really describes her emotions of going
Helga had heard many speculations of where her mother had been and what she was doing; after very many years of not seeing her, Helga becomes interested in finding out why her mother chose to become a guard for the Nazis and if she had any regrets. After contemplating long and hard Helga decides to visit her mother in Vienna before she passes at her old age. Helga asks her mother if she regrets how she lived her life as a Nazi guard and her surprise, her mother gets convicted to a certain extent and bursts out, “It’s no fun talking to my daughter!” then trying to dismiss Helga, she sticks her fingers into her ears and shouts “I’m not listening to you anymore!” (Schneider 76) Here we see that her mother knows what she did was morally and ethically wrong, but she does not regret what she was involved in. For Helga this was very difficult to comprehend. All she wanted was to cling onto the vintage memories, but the only thing she could do was make sure she, “buried her (mother) memory in a dark recess of my mind.” (Schneider 4) How hard it must have been to have such an unsightly desire to see the woman that birthed her. Sadly, the only was Helga really describes her emotions of going