She Survived Auschwitz Because a Nazi Fell in Love with Her: Helena Citrónová
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In July 1940, under pressure from Adolf Hitler, Slovakia’s government bends to Nazi demands, setting the stage for one of the earliest state-led deportations of Jews in Europe. By 1942, tens of thousands of Slovak Jews are rounded up, sold to Nazi Germany, and transported to death camps in occupied Poland.
Among them is Helena Citrónová, a young Jewish woman from Humenné, deported on the very first official transport of Slovak women to Auschwitz. Forced into brutal labor and surrounded by mass murder, her life takes a disturbing turn when she is noticed by Franz Wunsch, an SS guard who falls in love with her.
Wunsch uses his position to protect Helena, bring her food, and even save her sister from the gas chamber—though her sister’s children are murdered. Their secret relationship unfolds inside a world built on cruelty, violence, and genocide, blurring the line between survival and betrayal.
After the war, Helena testifies at Wunsch’s war crimes trial, describing both his acts of mercy and his brutality. Despite overwhelming evidence, he is acquitted. Their lives diverge forever—linked by a story that remains one of the most controversial and haunting human dramas of the Holocaust.
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