Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

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a b Saidel 2006, p. 24 "Between the camp's initiation of 18 May 1939 and the day of liberation, an estimated 117,000 of the 132,000 women who passed through the camp had been murdered". I am going to leave it there because Sarah Helm goes on to say a lot of 'other ' that no doubt has and will spark great debate among many readers. It may or may not sit well with you, myself, I am still fresh from the reading and I think it will take awhile to process it all. Many of these women, even in death, didn't get dignity of identity. They lived in memories of those who remain and in the book they get a mention. The lives of the women when they lived in the camp is incredibly inspiring. Knowing where they were and resigned to fate, they made do with what little space they had. Formed friendships, made alliances, escaped even. It puts a perspective on our own lives - as women and as individuals, the privileges that we have and the struggle that still exists. This is an excellent historical fiction novel. The author provides a nice follow up at the end discussing how her writing of this novel started. This is a debut novel by the author. I look forward to her next book that I hear is in the works!

One form of resistance was the secret education programmes organised by prisoners for their fellow inmates. All national groups had some sort of programme. The most extensive were among Polish women, wherein various high school-level classes were taught by experienced teachers. Caroline Ferriday, a person from real life, comes from wealthy but generous family. She volunteers at the French consulate in New York City. All her life evolved around her work, trying her best to help orphans in France. At 37, she swore celibacy, losing hope in any love life. Until she met Paul, a married actor. But his wife wasn't the most loyal, plus she lived in Paris. Caroline found herself spending her free time (something she rarely had) with this handsome charming man. However, Hitler invading Poland changed everything. Soon France was his new target and her beloved people were in more need than ever. Elize and Caroline Ferriday dedicated their time and possessions to help others.

Lilac Girls was sad and horrifying but it also exhibited hope, love, empathy, and the will to survive against all odds.

This is a book that demands a lot from its reader both in terms of time and emotional commitment to the story it tells. The latter can be at times grueling, uncomfortable, and lead to a cynicism about man’s inhumanity to its fellow human being. Yet, if you are willing to give yourself to this book, there are stories of heroism, courage, and perseverance that are unimaginable. Martha Hall Kelly’s prose and style are both just beautiful. It’s a style that both stands separate from the plot and also enlightens and enhances it. I often paused to admire a particular phrase or a gorgeous description or a well expressed emotion. This is the type of language that I just want to read slowly to soak up.Anna Ellory lives in Bath and has just completed her MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her book is poignant, highlighting how one fictional family was affected by the Holocaust. So she sits at the table with me. She tells me she wishes she’d been born a man. She talks of Himmler, whom she sometimes still calls “Reichsführer”. She talks for many hours, she gets lost in the different years and tries to explain her behaviour.’ Remarkably, the closer Germany came to defeat, the faster was the pace of murders by gas, starvation and poison. As he awaited his execution, Höss wrote that the urge to kill, in Helm’s words, “was nurtured for so long in the Nazi psyche that it eventually ran of its own volition, impossible to extinguish.” In the end, it seems, these Germans, having started their frenzy of killing with the Final Solution, just couldn’t stop. It had become a kind of habit, a way of being. It’s what they did.