Group 1, Question B Helga Schneider’s Let Me Go tells the story of Helga’s mother, who voluntarily joined the SS and became a guard at concentration camps. To willingly do this kind of job a person must have a strong believe that what they are doing is right, and Helga’s mother expresses this kind of sentiments, “I had the duty to obey, without argument, orders from above, and if those orders meant the gassing of millions of Jews, then I was willing to collaborate” (Schneider 159). Moreover, she expresses her feelings about Jewish women by saying, “[I]t turned my stomach to see all those perverted faces [Jewish women’s], the faces of an inferior race” (Schneider 138). However, even though compared with the first quote, where she expresses that what she did was an act of her German duty, the second quote seems to be more personal, they both come from the same…show more content… It can be noticed that although she expresses her perception of Jewish women, she does not have anything else to support her disgust except for saying that they are an inferior race. Certainly, it corresponds to what Nazi German government wanted their citizens to believe, and, in the case of Helga’s mother, they succeeded. Her words do not suggest that she has a personal grudge against the Jews or even if she even interacted with a Jewish person before the war. Therefore, just like in the case of the monster from Frankenstein, hatred is a learned behavior. However, unlike the monster, no one hurt Helga's mother, but rather she was convinced that following Nazi ideology was her “duty to obey” (Schneider 159). It is essential to understand that any kind of discrimination is a system of oppression that is based on a particular ideology rather than a personal experience. Therefore, it is important to think critically and ask questions and to
