Helena Citrónová: Jewish Auschwitz Prisoner Loved by an SS Guard Who Saved Her Life

Helena Citrónová was a Slovak Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz whose extraordinary story became intertwined with Franz Wunsch, an SS guard who fell in love with her and used his position to help her survive.Born in Humenné in eastern Slovakia, Helena was among the first Slovak Jewish girls deported to Auschwitz in March 1942, part of the initial transport that marked the beginning of the Holocaust in Slovakia. Stripped of her home, her freedom, and her family, she entered a world ruled by cruelty, starvation, and daily encounters with death.Inside Auschwitz-Birkenau, Helena was forced to work in the notorious “Canada” warehouses, where the belongings of murdered Jews were sorted. It was here that she was noticed by Franz Wunsch, an SS guard whose unexpected affection for her would shape the rest of her time in the camp.In a place engineered for dehumanization, their connection became a tragic paradox—an impossible bond between a Jewish prisoner and an SS officer responsible for enforcing the Nazi system that destroyed her family and her world. Wunsch used his position to protect Helena, provide her with food, and, in one desperate moment, help save the life of her sister. Yet he remained part of the Auschwitz machinery, complicit in brutality and violence against other prisoners.Their relationship, defined by fear, coercion, survival, and rare moments of humanity, continued until the evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945. After the war, their paths diverged—until a dramatic courtroom encounter 27 years later forced both to confront the past once more.This documentary explores Helena Citrónová’s survival and the deeply complex legacy of a relationship formed between a Jewish prisoner and an SS guard inside Auschwitz.This episode is part of the series Survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv