The Survival of Helga Braun

THE SURVIVAL OF HELGA BRAUN, by Helga Braun 'War is not healthy for Children and Flowers and other Living Things' Who can better explain this ancient axiom than a small child who survived War? Helga is such a child, now grown to adulthood and living in the United States, and her story of War and Living Things sears the mind and stirs the heart. Her account is set in Germany during World War II and the early postwar years of national and personal reconstruction. If you have ever wondered what it was like in Germany during this period, or where was the humanity of the people living there, or if you seek a strong statement of the truth and a boost to your heart, then you will want to read this child’s story. It is not a story of the Holocaust whose depths of pitiful loss and horror can only be hinted by tears and silence. There are no doubt accounts more severe and heartrending than Helga’s which is but one glimpse of the long story of uncounted millions of children, still struggling or long since muted, in the East and in the West, beginning from the ancient moment when War first raised its hideous head, through the millenniums to the present. Helga’s is a simple account of World War II as it fell on the small shoulders of a helpless child, and how War’s scourge slipped past the end of hostilities to continue its pain and loss through the present. Her entry into this life came in Germany, unfortunately with the rise of Adolf Hitler and his grotesque rally of hatred, conceit, prejudice and narrow-mindedness, that perversion of love we call nationalism. Trust and kindness, innocence and love, the flowers of the soul so evident in children, were crushed by War in the time of Helga’s childhood. For nearly eight years the Iron Fist ground flesh and bone and dear hearts, but little Helga somehow survived. From the child memory she now tells us what War is, very simply, sweetly, mercilessly, and what is the lovely Spirit of Life. No philosophical treatise, no dramatic sermon of the priest-craft, no impassioned speech of politics, can convey the truth of this child’s story. When you read it you will want to reach back in time to console this lonely little figure, feed her, fend off her assailants and smother her eyes and ears from the cruel scenes of War. And you will want to reach into the future and the present to protect all children, the entire child humanity, young and old. Helga echos the silent cries of countless victims: we have only the present to be kind, to assure kindness - the forces of War, once unleashed, will run their brutal course. Our thoughts, words and deeds must acclaim the Unity of Man, of all Life, a unity which already exists at the level of the Soul, and a truth which is innately known by all children. We are all Men first, born the same way, constructed the same way, with the same privileges from God. The outer badges of creed and politics are man-made and should not stand in the way of our Unity. We must reject conflict and competition, and embrace the natural spirit of mutuality and cooperation. If we wish to end War and other scourges of our lives, we must follow the higher instincts of the child within us. For we, like little Helga, are all children of the Family of Life. Helga Braun and Anne Frank are, in truth, sisters and would have dearly embraced. (Book review written by Philip Anderson, a Vietnam veteran now working for the U.S. Department of Commerce as a computer systems analyst in Washington, D.C.)