(1) She Fell in Love with Her Captor in Auschwitz | The Forbidden Story
In March 1942, a train with 997 women arrived at Avitz. Among them was a 19-year-old young woman named Helena Citronova. In a matter of hours, she was stripped of her clothes, her hair, and her name, reduced to a number engraved on her skin. The camp functioned as a precise extermination machine. Hunger, forced labor, daily selections, and executions.
In that scenario, survival was almost impossible. However, an unexpected fact altered the camp’s routine. An SS guard noticed Helena. What began as a glance transformed into gestures that could mean life or death? How could a bond emerge in the center of horror? What risks did both assume in sustaining it? How far could that protection reach within a system designed to annihilate? Before hell, the fall of a Jewish family in Slovakia.
In the city of Hume in eastern Czechoslovakia, a girl named Helena Sitronova was born on August 26th, 1922. The family belonged to the Jewish middle class. Her father worked as a cantor in the local synagogue which provided economic stability and community recognition. Four children lived in the house and from an early age, Helena showed inclination towards singing and music influenced by the cultural and religious environment of her home.
In the Czechoslovakia of the 20s, the Jewish community represented a significant and diverse presence. According to the 1930 census, around 136,000 Jews lived in Slovakia. About 4.5% [music] of the total population. They were concentrated mainly in Bratislava, Koshis, Preov, Nitra, and small localities in the east like Hume. Heirs to the diversity of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, Orthodox currents, modernized neological communities, and Zionist movements with links to Palestine coexisted.
The democratic stability of the interwar period allowed Jews to enjoy complete political rights. In cities, they dedicated themselves to liberal professions such as medicine, law, commerce, and education. In rural areas, they participated in agricultural commerce and in small local industries. There were newspapers in Hungarian, German, and Slovac.
Testimony to the multiculturalism of these communities. The international context was transformed at the end of the 1930s decade. The rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and the expansion of anti-semitism in central Europe altered regional stability. The Munich agreements of 1938 forced Czechoslovakia to seed the Sudatinland to Germany, initiating the dismemberment of the Czechoslovak state.
In March 1939, Slovakia proclaimed its independence under Hitler’s direct pressure. The new state remained under the presidency of Catholic priest Yosef Tiso and Prime Minister Voytechuka. Both established a pro-Nazi authoritarian regime that converted Slovakia into a close ally of the Third Reich. The government quickly adopted German directives in racial policy.
In April 1940, the first Aryanization law was promulgated. This regulation authorized the forced transfer of Jewish properties and businesses into the hands of citizens considered Aryan. State officials, interested businessmen and German advisers supervised the systematic confiscation. Thousands of families lost their means of subsistence and patrimony accumulated over generations in a few weeks.
Official propaganda accompanied these measures with a discourse that presented Jews as economic exploiters and enemies of the Slovak people. State media spread the narrative that their wealth had been obtained through the oppression of the local population. Voytech Tuka openly pro-Nazi was decisive in promoting this line. Hitler in meetings with Slovak politicians made clear that fidelity to the Reich depended on the application of radical policies against Jews.
On July 28th, 1940 in Salsburg, Hitler organized a conference with Slovak leaders. The context was favorable for Germany after the fall of France. And when the United Kingdom’s defeat seemed near, the dictator demanded the expulsion of the government’s moderate faction and its replacement by pro-German radicals. He insinuated that non-compliance would leave Slovakia at Hungary’s mercy, which led Slovak politicians to accept the ultimatum.
In September 1941, the Bratislava government issued the Jewish Code composed of 270 articles that regulated all aspects of Jewish life. This legislation, more extensive than the Constitution itself, was inspired by the Neuremberg laws of 1935. It prohibited marriages between Jews and non-Jews, excluded them from the majority of professions, restricted their access to education, limited the hours in which they could circulate through the streets, prevented their attendance at public events, and obligated them to wear the yellow star.
The code also enulled debts in favor of Jews, confiscated remaining properties, and limited their economic rights. It was presented as the most severe anti-semitic legislation in Europe at that time, reflecting the level of collaboration between the Slovak regime and Nazi racial policy. When internal objections arose, Tuka openly declared that he was not a Democrat.
A census carried out on December 15th, 1940 registered 89,000 Jews in the country. The regime’s next step was to negotiate their deportation with Germany. In March 1942, an agreement was signed between Bratislava and Berlin for the delivery of Slovak Jewish citizens. Slovakia became the first state not directly administered by Germany that accepted to deport its own citizens.
The agreement stipulated that the Slovak state would pay 500 Reich marks for each deported Jew under the pretext of covering costs of re-education and relocation. In total, Tiso’s regime delivered 10 million rife marks in exchange for the murder of its citizens in extermination camps. The state administration remained at the complete service of deportations.
The Hinka Guard, the regime’s paramilitary militia, played a central role in the capture and transport of Jews. Its members detained families, concentrated them in transit camps like Serid, Novaki, and Vine, and then delivered them at the border to German authorities. Detainees were given barely a few hours notice, were stripped of their goods, shaved, and subjected to searches.
The guard took advantage of its position to commit additional abuses against Jewish women. Between March and October 1942, approximately 58,000 Slovak Jews were deported toward camps in occupied Poland. The vast majority was murdered shortly after arrival. From that entire first wave, only 300 survived until the end of the war. In that context, the Citron family found itself in Hume.
In 1934, Helena’s older sister, Rojika, had immigrated to Palestine along with her husband. Difficulties in finding work forced them to return in 1939. When authorities communicated that young Jewish women would be employed in temporary work programs, many families thought these were transitional measures. On March 25th, 1942, the first official transport of Slovak Jews departed from Poprad toward Ashvitz.
997 teenagers and young single women traveled. Among them was Helena Sitronova. The train arrived the next day, March 26th, at the concentration and extermination camp. Awitz, the first transport of women toward death. The journey from Poprad lasted a full day in cattle cars. The 997 young women remained standing or sitting on the floor with scarce air, without space to move, and with insufficient water.
Upon descending at the Avitz ramp, they were surrounded by armed SSmen, trained dogs, and shouts in German. The contrast [music] with promises of temporary work was immediately revealed. The prisoners were led to a systematic registration process. They had to form lines, hand over all their belongings, and undress for a complete body inspection.
Their heads were shaved. They were given a collective shower with cold water and received used uniforms of inadequate sizes. Each one was assigned a number tattooed on the left forearm. From that moment, Helena was identified only by that figure in the camp’s administrative machinery. Avitz was going through an expansion phase in the spring of 1942.
The main camp had been built in 1940 as a detention center for Polish political prisoners. A year later, construction of Awitz II Burkanau began, destined to become the main extermination center of the complex. When Helena arrived, a large part of Burkanau continued under construction built by the prisoner’s own slave labor.
Helena was assigned to an outdoor work commando. Her first task consisted of demolishing Polish civilian buildings and removing debris from areas destined for camp expansion. These brigades operated under the surveillance of capos prisoners with authority over other inmates and armed SS guards. The orders were clear. Work without rest.
Carry stones, drag materials, and clean terrain marked for new constructions. The workday began before dawn with the appel, the [music] general count in the central plaza. The prisoners remained standing for hours until the total number of inmates was verified. Then they received a breakfast composed of watery coffee and a small piece of black bread.
Work extended until afternoon with a brief pause at midday for a ration of turnip or cabbage [music] soup diluted in water. Housing conditions were characterized by extreme overcrowding. The wooden barracks lacked insulation with triple bunks in which dozens of women were crowded. Each prisoner had minimal space to lie down. The floor was dirt or poorly fitted boards that let the wind pass through.
In winter, the cold penetrated the walls. In summer, the heat was unbearable. The straw that served as a mattress was infested with bed bugs and lice. Diseases spread rapidly. The lack of hygiene, overcrowding, and scarcity of portable water facilitated outbreaks of typhus, dissentry, scabies, and tuberculosis.
Helena and her companions had to present themselves at morning formations under rain or snow without adequate clothing. During these counts, many fell to the ground from weakness [music] and were removed from the line by other inmates. Hunger became a permanent condition. The daily diet did not reach the calories necessary for the physical effort of demolition tasks.
Weakened prisoners searched for potato peels in garbage buckets or picked up grains fallen during food transport. Those who were discovered received public beatings or lost their rations for several days. Punishments were a routine part of the system. An error in counter alignment could mean 20 blows with a stick.
Being surprised keeping a bread remnant or showing signs of weakness during work implied public beatings in front of other inmates. The coupos exercised systematic violence to demonstrate authority before SS guards. Death was visible on a daily basis. Women too weak to work were beaten until losing consciousness or abandoned until dying from exhaustion.
Guards publicly executed those who tried to escape or fell behind in their tasks. Bodies remained exposed for hours before being removed by other prisoners. During demolitions, Helena witnessed fatal accidents caused by working conditions. When tearing down walls without tools or safety measures, several companions were crushed by debris.
No one could move away from their work post. Those who tried were beaten for disobeying. The dehumanization system functioned through multiple mechanisms. The number tattoo replaced the name. Identical uniforms nullified individuality and headshaving erased all personal appearance. Exhausting work reduced the capacity to think beyond immediate survival.
Guards shouted orders in German. An incomprehensible language for many prisoners. The routine reinforced a permanent state of terror. Counts could be prolonged for hours as collective punishment. The arbitrariness of penalties kept inmates in constant uncertainty about what action could provoke violence.
The unpredictability of fate prevented any idea of stability. Public executions fulfilled a specific function in camp discipline. A prisoner hanged for attempted escape or shot for sabotage had to be observed by all others. The objective was to eliminate any possibility of resistance. Helena was forced to witness several of these acts in her first months at Awitz.
The administration maintained detailed records of every aspect. The number of prisoners assigned to each commando, daily deaths by illness or punishment and discipline reports remain documented in bureaucratic files. This administrative control coexisted with arbitrary violence creating a precise operational framework.
Mortality among young women from the initial transport was extremely high. In a few weeks, dozens had died from illness, exhaustion, or execution. Each prisoner understood that her survival depended on external factors and decisions she could not control. In her first months at Avitz, Helena went from being a young woman with musical aspirations to an inmate reduced to daily survival.
Her body adapted to chronic malnutrition and her hands were marked by permanent wounds. She learned to identify signs that preceded punishments and to avoid calling attention. Her weight descended drastically, but she managed to avoid selections that sent the weakest directly to death. Canada stolen wealth amid ashes.
In October 1942, Helena Citronova was transferred from demolition work to a warehouse complex known among prisoners as Canada. The name evoked the popular image of a distant country associated with abundance. In an environment of absolute scarcity, the term acquired particular meaning. There the goods confiscated from deportes at the moment of their arrival at the camp [music] were gathered and classified.
The warehouses were situated near the Burkana ramps where each day trains arrived with Jews, Roma and prisoners from other origins. The confiscation procedure followed an established pattern. The newly arrived were divided into two groups. The majority destined immediately to the gas chambers and a minority selected for forced labor.
Before continuing, they had to leave their luggage under the supervision of armed guards. The deportes had received instructions that their belongings would be returned after supposed disinfection. Therefore, they carried carefully prepared suitcases with spare clothing, preserved foods, medications, family photographs, documents, and in many cases, hidden jewels or cash money from various European countries.
After each transport, prisoner crews collected the material abandoned on the ramp. The luggage was transported in carts to Canada where a meticulous classification process began that operated like a production line. Garments were ordered by type and quality. Shoes were paired according to their condition and domestic utensils were grouped according to manufacturing material.
Jewish religious objects such as Torah scrolls or talot [music] were set aside for destruction. Preserved foods were destined for guard consumption or sent to Germany. Items of greater value received special treatment. Jewels, watches, gold dental frames, and coins were packaged to be sent to the Reichkes Bank in Berlin. Fur garments and fine fabrics were reserved for SS officers and their families.
Personal documents were incinerated after extracting useful information for administration. The magnitude of the looting exceeded warehouse capacity. Each transport contributed tons of goods that filled entire barracks with mountains of shoes, piles of glasses, children’s toys, musical instruments, and books in multiple languages.
For SS officers, this accumulation represented an additional economic resource that complemented their income. Working conditions in Canada differed from other commandos. Work was performed under roof, which protected from extreme weather. Additionally, prisoners had access to warmer clothing and footwear in good condition, extracted from suitcases.
Foods found, sausages, preserves, chocolate, or bread, [music] could mean an advantage for survival, although their consumption was strictly prohibited and could be punished with death. In practice, many guards tolerated small thefts because they themselves participated in looting and selected valuable objects to send to their families or sell in parallel markets.
Work in Canada also exposed prisoners to a particular dimension of extermination. Each object handled held the memory of a person who probably had been murdered hours before. Photographs showed families that no longer existed. Toys evidenced the presence of children who had been sent to gas chambers and religious objects confirmed the destruction of entire communities.
Helena gradually integrated into the classification routine. She reviewed suitcases, separated garments, searched for objects hidden in seams and organized materials according to categories. Control was strict. Supervisors verified that nothing escaped SS Dominion and prisoners surprised hiding articles were punished with extreme severity, including public executions.
Canada’s dynamics implied more frequent interaction between guards and prisoners. Officers closely supervised the process and occasionally established conversations with some inmates. This proximity generated both risks and opportunities. A gesture could attract immediate punishment or provide some degree of protection.
On October 30th, 1942, a musical presentation was organized within the camp. On the occasion of an officer’s birthday, prisoners with artistic skills were forced to perform. Helena, recognized for her voice since her youth in Hume, was selected to sing in German. Her interpretation caught the attention of one of Canada’s supervisors who asked her to repeat the song at the end.
That officer was France Vunch, a 20-year-old Austrian SS Unsharafura born in 1922 in Drhofen near the Czechoslovak border. After being wounded on the Eastern front, he had been assigned to Avitz as part of surveillance personnel. His daily presence in the warehouses kept him in contact with prisoners assigned to classification.
The brief interaction during that musical performance marked the beginning of a contact that later would have significant consequences. For Helena, an SS member represented the authority of the system that had stripped her of freedom. For Vunch, she distinguished herself somehow among the hundreds of prisoners under his supervision.
That initial exchange became a turning point within Canada’s routine where closeness between guards and inmates could derive in unforeseen dynamics. The guard and the prisoner, a forbidden bond in the heart of extermination. France Vunch had grown up in Drhofen during the years following World War I in a context of economic instability and political agitation.
His family belonged to the rural working class and progressively adopted German nationalist ideas that circulated in the region. Austria’s annexation to the Third Reich in March 1938 was received with enthusiasm by a large part of the population, especially among young people who perceived it as an opportunity to participate in what was presented as a national renaissance.
In 1940, at 18 years old, WCH entered the SS. The selection process combined physical, racial, and ideological criteria followed by intensive military training and indoctrination based on national socialist doctrine. Training insisted on absolute obedience to the furer. Strict discipline and identification of the Rich’s enemies.
In June 1941, after the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Vunch was assigned to the Eastern Front. The campaign proved more prolonged and brutal than anticipated. The Russian winter, Red Army resistance, and front extension overwhelmed German troops. During this stage, Vunch suffered a knee wound that incapacitated him for active combat.
Instead of discharging him, he was transferred to the concentration camp system where surveillance and administration personnel were required. His destination was Achvitz, which was rapidly expanding to become the Third Reicher’s largest extermination complex. Guards received precise instructions to maintain order, supervise forced labor, participate in selections, and control installations such as crerematoriums and warehouses within Avitz.
Vunch was assigned to the Canada area, responsible for classifying goods confiscated from deportes. This function kept him in direct contact with prisoners who performed those tasks. Besides supervising classification, he participated in selections performed on the ramp, deciding who would go to work and who would be sent to immediate death, as well as in disciplinary punishments against inmates who violated orders.
After the musical performance of October 30th, 1942, Vunch began to seek Helena during his supervision rounds. Initially, encounters occurred within the framework of his functions, but over time they acquired a more personal character. He asked her questions about her origin, requested details about her work, or asked her to sing song fragments when other guards were not present.
As weeks passed, Vunch manifested more explicit interest. He delivered notes to Helina in which he expressed attraction toward her and provided concrete favors, additional food rations, more adequate clothing for cold weather or parts of packages he received from his mother in Austria. These gestures constituted clear infractions within camp regulations since guards were prohibited from establishing personal bonds with prisoners.
Nevertheless, Vunch continued assuming considerable risks within SS hierarchy. For Helena, initial approaches generated fear and distrust. She knew guard brutality and understood that accepting favors could be interpreted as collaboration by her companions, awakening dangerous suspicions. At the same time, directly rejecting an officer could result in immediate reprisals.
The relationship developed amid this constant tension. WooC did not limit himself to intervening in Helena’s favor. On some occasions, he interceded for her companions, delaying punishments or obtaining less risky work assignments. Among prisoners, these episodes generated ambivalent reactions. Some saw in Helena a possible channel of help.
Others viewed her with suspicion. The dilemma for Helena was permanent. Additional food and warm clothing increased her survival probabilities in a context of chronic hunger and extreme cold. However, accepting that support meant depending on someone who participated directly in the system that had destroyed her family.
Over time, her attitude toward Vunch acquired shades of ambiguity. She remembered her parents’ death in gas chambers and her brother’s death when attempting to escape from electrified wire. At the same time, she perceived in Vunch behavior different from other guards, less marked by immediate violence, although equally integrated in the repressive structure.
Testimonies coincide in pointing out that the bond did not include intimate physical contact. Camp conditions made it almost impossible. Barracks were always watched, prisoners slept, crowded together, and movements toward officer zones were controlled. The relationship was sustained through brief conversations, note exchanges, and small gifts.
WC came to assume additional risks. When Helena contracted typhus, a generally fatal disease in Awitz, he hid her in warehouses and provided basic care until she recovered. He also gave her part of food sent by his mother, renouncing personal benefits uncommon among camp guards. Special attention did not go unnoticed. In Avitz, any deviation from protocol generated suspicions.
Helena was interrogated under accusation of maintaining a prohibited relationship with an SS member. Interrogators exercised threats of immediate execution if she confessed. They sought proof of intimate contact. Which would have constituted a grave infraction of Reich racial norms. Helena denied all accusations and maintained her version under pressure.
Her refusal was decisive. A confession would have meant her execution and Vunch’s prosecution. The absence of direct evidence and the discretion with which he handled his actions allowed the investigation not to prosper. Helena returned to her work in Canada. Weakened by interrogations but alive.
The episode altered internal perceptions among prisoners. Some saw in Helena a possible way to access benefits or protection. Others distanced themselves for fear of being associated with her. Henceforth, Vunch took extreme precautions, treating her publicly like any inmate, but maintaining privately the dynamic of help and favors.
For approximately 2 years, Helena managed to avoid selections and survive illnesses and extreme conditions that cost the lives of thousands of prisoners monthly. W’s protection did not eliminate risk but generated a margin of relative security in an environment dominated by systematic death between life and death. The decision that marked a destiny.
In 1944, Ashvitz Burkenau functioned at full capacity. German occupation of Hungary in March had unleashed massive deportations that daily brought thousands of people toward the complex. Each transport represented a constant flow of trains, unloading entire families on the selection ramp. For Helena, who had already accumulated more than 2 years in the camp, these arrivals had become a terrifying but known routine.
In October, among deportes from a convoy from Slovakia, Helina learned that her sister Rojika was there with her two children, a 9-year-old girl and a newborn baby. Information reached her through prisoners who worked near the ramp and had recognized the family name during initial registration. Helena immediately understood the implications.
Women with small children were sent directly to gas chambers. Selections followed established criteria. SS doctors among them Joseph Mangala divided the newly arrived into groups according to their work capacity. Young adults in good condition were destined for barracks for forced labor. Elderly, sick, and women with small children were sent to immediate death.
Miners under 14 rarely survived the initial [music] process. Upon receiving the news, Helena abandoned her post in Canada and ran toward the crematorium area. She tried to reach her sister and children before they were led into the building’s interior. She shouted Rojika’s name and asked to join them, declaring she preferred to die alongside her family.
The scene occurred in front of other prisoners and guards, which constituted an evident violation of camp rules. Simply abandoning one’s post or altering order during an extermination procedure could mean immediate execution. France Vunch, informed of Helena’s sister’s arrival, came to the place.
To justify his intervention before those present, he began to beat her publicly. Amid the blows, he whispered her sister’s name to confirm it. Helena responded that Rojika had arrived with two children and that any attempt to save them would be useless. Vunch reacted quickly. He explained that miners could not remain in the camp, but that it was still possible to separate the mother if they acted immediately.
He then addressed the officer in charge of that selection and argued that he needed an additional prisoner for work in Canada. Under this pretext, he managed to separate Roika from the group destined for the gas chamber. The intervention succeeded because it occurred before the procedure had concluded. The children could not be saved.
The 9-year-old girl and newborn baby were murdered along with the rest of the group. Wa’s authority as SS Unto Shafura did not reach to modify the rule that automatically condemned minors. Rashika however was assigned to the classification commando and was reunited with Helena after years of separation. The partial rescue generated a contradictory experience in Helena.
She had recovered her sister thanks to Vunch, but at the price of losing her nephews. The scene in front of the crematorium remained engraved as a demonstration of the limits and possibilities of the relationship with the Austrian guard. The incident did not go unnoticed. The relationship between Helena and Vunch had already generated suspicions and his intervention in an extermination process increased tensions.
Rumors about preferential treatment circulated among camp personnel, and Helena was again detained for interrogation. The procedure was more severe than on previous occasions. For several days, she endured physical violence, food deprivation, and threats against her newly saved sister. Interrogators sought a confession of intimate relationship that would justify her execution, and Vunch’s prosecution for violating racial laws.
Helena maintained her refusal at all times. She sustained that any treatment received was result of her efficiency in classification work. She understood that admitting anything else meant immediate death for both sisters and for Vunch. Simultaneously, Vunch was interrogated by his superiors.
He explained that his intervention at the crematorium had responded to operational work needs and denied personal motivations. He maintained a version coherent with Helena’s which made it difficult for investigators to obtain evidence. The lack of direct evidence and coinciding versions allowed the investigation to close without condemnation.
Although surveillance over both intensified, Helena returned to Canada, weakened by interrogations, but alive, the reunion with Roika was marked by joy of survival and irreversible pain for the children’s loss. Among prisoners, the episode generated new perceptions. Some saw in Helena a possible source of protection.
Others maintained distance for fear of being compromised. The dynamic with wh continued under strict discretion. Both understood that an error could reactivate investigations that had already been about to end them. The crematorium episode clearly revealed the limits of influence VC could exercise. He had managed to save Rojika’s life, but had not been able to prevent the miner’s death.
For Helena, that experience defined the framework in which her relationship with the guard could operate. Punctual and discreet help, always within a system that maintained its fundamental logic of extermination. The Reichkes collapsed farewell in Avitz’s shadows. During 1944, war’s course tilted decisively. German defeat at Stalingrad and constant retreat on the Eastern front pushed the concentration camp system toward a stage of maximum exploitation and at the same time organizational collapse.
Avitz received during those months an increasing number of deportations that saturated its capacity. Between May and July, German occupation of Hungary resulted in the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Jews, intensifying the extermination pace. Increased prisoners generated internal tensions. A group of s commando, Jews forced to work in crerematoriums, planned a rebellion.
Women prisoners introduced small amounts of gunpowder from an armament factory in Monowitz, transporting it hidden in their clothes. On October 7th, 1944, the uprising materialized. S Commando from Crematorium 4 attacked with improvised tools, set fire to part of the installations and killed several guards.
The revolt was suffocated in a few hours through armed reinforcements. Approximately 450 prisoners were murdered during immediate repression. The camp’s response extended in following weeks. Hundreds of inmates suspected of sympathizing with the rebellion were publicly shot. Women involved in gunpowder smuggling, among them Rosa Rabot, were tortured and finally hanged in January 1945 in front of thousands of prisoners.
Executions served as explicit warning about consequences of any resistance attempt. In the last months of 1944, conditions in Avitz deteriorated further. Red Army advance interrupted supply lines. Rations reduced to minimum levels. Almost liquid soup and bread in increasingly smaller fractions. Winter between 1944 and 1945 proved particularly harsh with temperatures well below 0 degrees.
Without fuel or adequate clothing, mortality increased dramatically. Typhus, dissentry and tuberculosis epidemic spread rapidly among prisoners weakened by years of hunger. Medical system collapsed and sick were left to die in their bunks, bodies accumulating before being removed. Helena had managed to survive more than 2 years in those conditions.
Her work in Canada had allowed her to access additional resources and France Vunch’s discrete protection continued providing limited advantages although even guards were affected by general scarcity. WCH was aware that German military situation was unsustainable. Rumors about evacuations and evidence destruction circulated openly.
Some officers prepared their escape, but the camp continued functioning until the last weeks. In January 1945, the evacuation of tens of thousands of prisoners was organized. So-called death marches were carried out under extreme temperatures without food or adequate shelter. On January 18th, around 60,000 prisoners were forced to walk toward the Reich’s interior.
Many died on the journey from exhaustion, freezing, or immediate execution when unable to maintain pace. Before this evacuation, Vunch secretly sought Helena within Canada warehouses. He communicated that he had done everything in his power to protect her and expressed personal feelings developed during more than 2 years of contact.
It was an intimate farewell. Both understood they probably would not see each other again. Helena remained in Avitz among prisoners too weak to be evacuated. Approximately 7,000 remained behind, mostly sick or unable to walk long distances. Guards withdrew, leaving those people in the camp. On January 27th, 1945, the Red Army liberated Ashvitz.
They found survivors in critical conditions, malnourished, sick, and with visible sequels from years of mistreatment. They also discovered warehouses full of looted belongings and remains of partially destroyed crerematoriums. Helena was liberated that day with very deteriorated physical condition after almost 3 years of captivity.
Soviet doctors and aid organizations improvised hospitals to care for the liberated. Liberation did not mean immediate end of suffering. Many died in subsequent weeks from advanced diseases. Those who survived faced difficulty of reintegrating into a radically transformed world. For Helena, the camp’s end marked beginning of a reconstruction process marked by loss.
Her parents had been murdered in gas chambers. Her brother had died electrocuted in an escape attempt and her nephews had been executed in the crematorium. Only she and Rojika survived from human family. Liberation experience was marked by a mixture of relief and emotional weight. Having survived contrasted with memory of those who did not succeed.
Among those memories also remained France Vunch’s figure whose protection had contributed to her survival within a system that in essence had been designed to destroy her. Soviets documented conditions found and collected prisoner testimonies. Helena declared part of her experience. Although she avoided detailing her bond with the Austrian Guard during first weeks after liberation, her priority was recovering strength and adapting to new reality.
Definitive separation from Vunch coincided with Third Reich’s collapse, marking an end point in that stage of her life and leaving open the unknown about what awaited her outside Awitz. The past’s echo Vienna 1972. After spending several weeks under medical attention in Poland, Helena and her sister Rojika moved in summer 1945 to the Palestine mandate.
They established themselves among survivor communities seeking to restart in the Holy Land. Helena adopted the Hebrew name Zipper Tahori, married David Tahori, a Zionist activist, and formed a family with two children. adaptation to new society implied a reconstruction process marked by silence.
For years, she avoided relating Avitz details even to her closest family. Many survivors in Israel shared that attitude. Collective priority consisted in building present and future leaving European past in second place. Helena integrated into this dynamic and assumed her identity as wife and mother as central maintaining camp memories in private sphere.
Occasionally she received correspondence from Europe. Letters came from France Vunch who had obtained her address through international red cross. In them he expressed his desire to maintain contact and know about her life. Helena never responded. Meanwhile, Vunch had reintegrated in Austria.
He established himself in Vienna, married, formed family, and worked as industrial technician. He led an apparently normalized existence, although he persisted in his attempts to communicate with Helena, evidence that his Awitz experience had left a permanent mark. During the 1950s and 1960s decades, Austria and Germany initiated trials against former SS members.
Frankfurt processes in 1963 had set [music] important precedents for persecution of crimes committed in Achvitz. In 1972, Austrian justice opened a procedure against Vunch. Accusations included homicide and prisoner mistreatment based on survivor testimonies and administrative documentation. Some witnesses affirmed that Vunch had shot against a Greek prisoner during [music] October 7th, 1944 rebellion.
Others remembered acts of violence toward male prisoners. However, there also existed testimonies that mentioned different behavior towards certain women, particularly after establishing contact with Helena. These contradictions added complexity to the process. Defense attempted to construct the image of a camp official without direct responsibility in murders who occasionally had even provided help.
In this context, Helena’s testimony acquired relevance. W’s wife even wrote personally to her in Israel begging her to travel to Vienna to testify. Helena received the petition with contradictory feelings. Accepting meant speaking publicly about experiences she had kept silent for more than 25 years and including aspects of her relationship with a guard she had never shared even with her family.
Finally, she decided to travel considering she had moral obligation to relate what she had witnessed. Return to Europe was her first visit since 1945. Vienna city transformed in decades following war. Awakened latent memories. In court, she appeared as defense witness. She was 50 years old. Married, mother of two children, and had built a stable life in Israel.
In marked contrast with the young prisoner she had been in Avitz, her declaration developed with sober and controlled tone. She explained that Vunch had provided additional food, clothing and protection against danger situations. She related the episode in which he saved her sister Roika by separating her from the line toward gas chamber.
She recognized that her survival had depended partly on those gestures. At the same time, she confirmed having witnessed acts of violence by Vunch, his participation in selections that sent thousands of people to death, and his brutality toward male prisoners. Her testimony showed an ambivalent image, a guard integrated in extermination machinery, but who in specific circumstances had protected some prisoners.
During her testimony, Helena avoided looking at WCH directly. She spoke with concise phrases and without showing evident emotions. When remembering her nephew’s death, her voice broke and she had to interrupt her account. At that moment, Vunch cried in the courtroom. Defense used that reaction as argument of remorse. They presented Vunch not as a ruthless criminal but as a man trapped in extreme circumstances.
>> [music] >> Prosecution, in contrast, presented documents and multiple testimonies that confirmed his involvement in acts of violence. The dilemma posed by Helena’s testimony was clear. Gratitude [music] toward a guard who had saved her life and at the same time precise memory of his participation in a criminal system.
The court evaluated evidence for weeks. Finally, WCH was acquitted. The sentence was justified by lack of direct evidence of personally committed murders and in legal dispositions about prescription. After the trial, Helena returned to Israel immediately. She considered having fulfilled her moral duty by declaring what she knew without omitting the contradiction of her experience.
She never again maintained contact with WCH nor intervened in judicial matters related to him. Her testimony remained archived as permanent record of a history that linked victim and perpetrator in a bond as improbable as real reflection of complexities that persisted even decades after wars end. The last echo what remained after genocide.
Helena Sitanova died on June 4th, 2007 in Tel Aviv, Israel at 84 years old. She had lived more than six decades since her liberation from Awitz. time during which she formed a family, worked and witnessed Israeli society transformations. Her death was registered in local and international media that remembered her particular story within Holocaust Framework.
Franvunch died on February 23rd, 2009 in Austria at 86 years old. He spent his last years in Vienna with his family in a discrete life without new judicial processes after his acquitt in 1972. His death had less public repercussion mentioned mainly in contexts of historical research about Awitz. Temporal distance between both deaths definitively closed a history that had united their destinies during a specific period of 20th century Europe.
From 1972 trial until their deaths, they maintained no contact. Their subsequent trajectories developed in different countries within separate social contexts. Their case singularity attracted attention from researchers, documentarians, and creators. It represented an exceptional episode that did not fit easily into habitual categories of victims and perpetrators.
In academic field, it was analyzed under grayzone concept formulated to describe moral ambiguity spaces where survival, power, and individual decisions generated dynamics difficult to classify as resistance or collaboration. In 2005, British chain BBC included the story in its documentary series Awitz, the Nazis and the final solution, presenting survivor testimonies and documents from 1970 to trial.
Production underlined bond complexity, avoiding simplifying interpretations. In 2015, Thai composer Santos such premiered opera Helena Citronova directly inspired by this story. work explored in musical language, themes of survival, guilt, and redemption in extreme circumstances represented in different European countries.
It generated debate about limits of Holocaust artistic representation and tension between historical memory and cultural recreation. These productions kept Helena and France’s memory alive, but also opened discussions about ways to transmit traumatic experiences. Some critics warned about risk of romanticizing tragedy aspects while others defended necessity of exploring human complexity even in most dehumanizing scenarios.
Within Helena’s family, information about her relationship with Vunch was known mainly after her death through documents and archival materials. Her descendants accessed her testimony in 1972 trial preserved in Vienna which constitutes most complete record of her version about Avitz facts. That judicial archive has served as source for academic studies focused on women’s experience in concentration camps, power dynamics between guards and prisoners and survival mechanisms in systematic annihilation contexts.
In Austria, Vunch’s acquitt was part of broader pattern of legal difficulties in war crime prosecution decades after their commission due to evidentiary limitations and prescription dispositions. In Israel, story circulated among survivor communities as example of experience diversity that marked resistance to extermination.
It showed how survival could depend on unforeseeable circumstances, individual decisions or bonds established amid genocide. This experience representation raises persistent questions about how contemporary societies understand and transmit Holocaust memory. Helena and France’s case introduces ambiguity elements that make linear narratives difficult without diminishing extermination magnitude or its planned character.
It has also been object of interest in psychological studies which analyze it as example of contradictions that could coexist in same individual capacity to establish personal bonds at same time as participating in extermination machinery. For historioggraphy, Helena’s experience reminds that even within a system designed for total annihilation, individual variations existed that affected particular destinies.
These exceptions do not alter genocide industrial and planned character but add complexity to its understanding. Helena’s death in 2007 and Vunches in 2009 closed a history initiated in October 1942 with a musical performance in Avitz. Their names remained linked in judicial archives, documentaries, and artistic works not by their own will but by circumstances that united them in 20th century’s most violent scenario.
Today their story is cited in academic, educational and cultural fields as example of human complexities emerged even in absolute dehumanization environments. Their legacy forms part of Holocaust collective memory and continues raising questions about cruelty limits and humanity persistence in extreme conditions.
