Nazi SS Guard Who Loved a Jewish Prisoner at Auschwitz: Franz Wunsch
Hearts at War: Love in World War II [collection]
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13m
The Nuremberg Laws banned Jews and “Aryans” from loving each other. At Auschwitz, Franz Wunsch helped send Jews to the gas chambers — and then fell in love with one of them.
Helena Citrónová, a young Slovak Jewish prisoner, sang at his birthday celebration in 1942. From that moment, a secret and dangerous relationship began inside Birkenau, the epicenter of Nazi extermination.
Wunsch protected her, saved her sister, and risked punishment — yet he also took part in selections and killings. Helena despised the Nazis, had lost her family to the gas chambers, and struggled with feelings she never wanted to have.
After the war, she testified for him in court. He was acquitted.
A story of love, power, survival, guilt, and the unbearable moral paradoxes born inside Auschwitz.
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