Auschwitz's forbidden love: The disturbing real-life story of Jewish death camp inmate who saved her family from the gas chamber by falling in love with SS guard

• Helena Citronova fell in love with SS guard Franz Wunsch at Nazi camp
• He managed to save her and sister Rozinka from going to gas chambers
• Wunsch: 'Desire changed my brutal behaviour'; he escaped prison at trial
• Kate Breslin's For Such a Time portrays similar liaison but has been slated

By Allan Hall In Berlin for MailOnline

Published: 05:11 EST, 12 August 2015 | Updated: 10:51 EST, 12 August 2015

It was the most forbidden love of them all under the rule of the Nazis.

As soon as Hitler took power in 1933, regime bureaucrats began drawing up the grotesque Nuremberg Laws banning relationships between 'Aryans' and Jews.

But such relationships DID exist in the Third Reich - even between its most monstrous servants and their victims. 

As controversy swirls around a new novel by Kate Breslin - branded 'offensive and upsetting' because it centres on the fictional romance between an SS concentration camp commandant and a prisoner – the truth about complex human relationships forged in terrible times cannot be denied.

Forbidden love: SS guard Franz Wunsch (left) and Jewish prisoner Helena Citronova fell in love at Auschwitz - just like the two main characters in controversial new novel For Such a Time

No return: Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, pictured in January 1945. At least 1.2million people were liquidated there by the Nazis

The Breslin book, For Such a Time, portrays a warped love in a warped place. And nowhere during the 12 years that the Nazis ruled most of Europe was as warped, hideous and murderous as the Auschwitz death factory in occupied Poland.

This was the place where people did anything to survive, anything to avoid 'selections' that would mean a one-way trip to the gas chambers. 

Helena Citronova was among them and saved her life and those of her family by relenting to the affections of a hated SS guard.

Although she slept with her saviour, Wunsch, and admitted that she eventually harboured deep feelings of love for him, Helena's forbidden relationship was only forged because she wanted to stay alive in the most terrible place on earth.

A Jew from Slovakia, she worked in the giant warehouse at the camp called 'Canada' where the belongings of the doomed were sorted before they were shipped back to Berlin to fuel the Nazi war effort.

There she met Wunsch in 1942. Their relationship was portrayed by the American PBS network in a programme about the death camp in which at least 1.2million people were liquidated.

'The relationship between SS man Franz Wunsch and Jewish woman Helena Citronova is certainly one of shock,' it said. 

'Who could comprehend that, in a place such as Auschwitz, a place full of death, pain and sadism, an emotion as pure as love could be around?

'Had it not been for the fateful moment when Helena was asked to sing for Wunsch's birthday, she wouldn't have survived. She had been sentenced to death earlier that day.'

Wunsch sent her biscuits, passed her notes saying 'Love - I fell in love with you'. He even saved her sister Rozinka from certain death.

'When he came into the barracks where I was working, he threw me that note. I destroyed it right there and then, but I did see the word "love" — "I fell in love with you",' she said years later in Israel.

'I thought I'd rather be dead than be involved with an SS man. For a long time afterwards there was just hatred. I couldn't even look at him.'

But she admitted that her feelings for Wunsch changed over time, especially when her sister and her sister's children arrived at Auschwitz Birkenau. Helena learned that they were to be sent to the gas chamber and her SS admirer tried to help them. 

Archive footage shows prisoners inside Auschwitz camp

Comrades in terror: Wunsch (left) with Oscar Groening (right), a fellow Auschwitz guard who, at 94, was recently convicted of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people and sentenced to four years in prison

Lost souls: A pile of shoes stripped from prisoners is one of the contemporary exhibits at the Auschwitz death camp.  Helena worked in the giant warehouse at the camp called 'Canada' where the belongings of the doomed were sorted before they were shipped back to Berlin to fuel the Nazi war effort

Helena went on: 'So he said to me, "Tell me quickly what your sister's name is before I'm too late." So I said, "You won't be able to. She came with two little children." 

'He replied, "Children, that's different. Children can't live here." So he ran to the crematorium and found my sister.'

Wunsch was able to save Helena's sister by saying she worked for him in Canada, but he could do nothing for the children.

Helena and her sister survived Auschwitz, and although her relationship with Wunsch never developed further, she did testify on his behalf years later at his war crimes trial.

Helena, who died in 2005, said in an interview with UK filmmaker Laurence Rees: 'Here he did something great. There were moments where I forgot that I was a Jew and that he was not a Jew and, honestly, in the end I loved him.

'But it could not be realistic.'

In another programme made for Israeli TV called 'A Different Love' in 2003, she said; 'I did not forget a minute, I remember everything... I was something different, and everyone knew this story. There was a stain on me; he was an SS man.

'The fact is that my life was saved, thanks to him. I did not choose this, it simply happened. It was a relationship that could happen only in such a place — in another planet. 

Horror: The women's barracks at Auschwitz. Helena and her sister survived but hundreds of thousands of other women, men and children perished in the camp

Saved: Helena Citronova (left) with her sister Rozinka and Rozinka's daughter. Helena's lover Franz Wunsch was able to save the two sisters

'When I was young, I was preoccupied and didn't deal with my past. Now the memories are returning to me, like a boomerang.'

In a review of the programme entitled Cinematic Love and the Shoah: abnormal love during abnormal times, author Yvonne Kozlovsky wrote: 'The film's director attempted to maintain a restrained, neutral approach, without overly prying into the survivor's personal life. 

'He wanted to make the film to serve as a kind of platform for her difficult personal confession.

'Nevertheless, the director leaves the viewer wondering about the conduct of the relationship between the two. How did the other Nazis react to the affair? 

'After all, any contact between 'Aryan' and Jew was forbidden on pain of death. How did Helena's cellmates react? And how did the two keep in touch?

'The nature of the relationship and its location suggest that, from Helena's point of view, it was played out on the border between emotional attachments; she admits that toward the end of the war she had begun to harbor feelings for him. 

'She states that this was true love on his part and that he was willing to risk his life for her; for her part, she had sex with him owing to the circumstances of time and place.'

An Austrian by birth, Wunsch, who died six years ago, was described at his trial by camp survivors as a natural 'Jew Hater' who sometimes served on the infamous 'ramp' - selecting inmates who arrived on trains from all over occupied Europe to live or die.

At the trial in Vienna in 1972 the court heard how he was a brute to prisoners, beating men and women alike. 

No way out: A woman prisoner with her young Jewish counterparts at Auschwitz. Franz Wunsch was described at his trial by camp survivors as a natural 'Jew Hater'

At least once, and probably more often than that, he was on duty at the gas chambers where he dropped in the lethal Zyklon-B pesticide pellets that killed the prisoners.

'Desire changed my brutal behaviour, he said. 'I fell in love with Helena Citronova and that changed me. I changed into another person because of her influence.'

Despite what the judge called 'an overwhelming evidence of guilt' in the participation of mass murder, he was acquitted of all charges due to the statute of limitations governing war crimes in Austria.

Helena and her sister spoke in favour of him at the trial.

Katherine Locke is a Jewish romance writer based in Philadelphia who has been vocal in her opposition to Breslin's book. 

She claims the novel is a poor retelling of the Old Testament Book of Esther, in which Hadassah, a Jewish girl also known as Esther, marries the Persian king Ahasuerus in order to save her people from a genocide.

Debate: Jewish romance writer Katherine Locke says Helena's real life story is 'important' but that bears no relation to the flaws in the novel by Kate Breslin (left)

See the abandoned train graveyard, home to Auschwitz carriages

But Locke does not believe this makes Helena's story any the less inspiring.

She told MailOnline: 'That this relationship happened in real life is not surprising but I still don’t know if it was consensual.

'You cannot consent in that power dynamic. They [the SS guards] are still guys exterminating and killing millions and millions of people.

'We are talking about two very different stories from different perspectives.

'[Helena's] story is her story and that is really important and I am glad her and her sister were able to be saved.

'But I don’t think it's a common story and telling it using a non-Jewish voice [like Breslin does] and from a non-Jewish perspective is dangerous and it erases Jewish history.

'If she wrote this story as a true story that would be different but she didn't – she stole stories to push an agenda.'

'OFFENSIVE AND UPSETTING': THE STORM AROUND 'FOR SUCH A TIME'

The storm surrounding For Such a Time came after the tale of a Jewish woman prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp falling in love with the Nazi commandant was shortlisted for two top awards.

Although it won neither the best first book or best 'inspirational' romance novel in the Romance Writers of America awards, its nomination still managed to provoke outrage in the rom-lit world.

Sarah Wendell, author and co-founder of the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books romance website, wrote to the RWA’s board of directors saying the decision to shortlist the novel was 'offensive and upsetting'.

Kate Breslin's book has prompted a storm of criticism after it was nominated for two categories at the Romance Writers of America awards

'This is a romance between a Jewish prisoner and a Nazi officer who was in charge of a concentration camp. 

'To put it mildly, I don’t see this set-up as an imbalance of power that could possibly be redeemed in a romance narrative, nor do I think the setting and characterisation is remotely romantic. But I think this issue is much larger than my individual opinion.

'In the Holocaust, over six million Jews, and more than 17million people in total were killed by the Nazis. In For Such a Time, the hero is redeemed and forgiven for his role in a genocide. 

'The stereotypes, the language, and the attempt at redeeming an SS officer as a hero belittle and demean the atrocities of the Holocaust. 

'The heroine’s conversion at the end underscores the idea that the correct path is Christianity, erases her Jewish identity, and echoes the forced conversions of many Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust.'

Wendell has also written to Breslin, and to representatives at Bethany House, the Christian publisher which released the book.

On publication last year, For Such a Time received a starred review from Library Journal, which said that 'fans of historical fiction, especially those who enjoy complex dramatic stories, will want to pick up this title', and was a 'top pick' on a book review site.

Breslin won 'Christian Retailing’s 2015 Best Award for first time author', and the novel has received almost 200 five-star reviews on amazon.com. 

The RWA’s board of directors said in a statement that it had received a 'great deal of heartfelt and moving feedback' about some of this year’s finalists, but that 'discussions about content restrictions inevitably lead to concerns about censorship.'

And Newsweek Magazine in America called it 'the bizarre The Nazi love story tearing the romance lit world apart.'

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