Never judge a book by its cover! This novel centers around three women - and the cover of the book has three women, arms locked together, walking along a path. I assumed the "lilac girls" were the three main characters. Boy was I wrong! I kept wondering how the German doctor would join forces with the Polish girl and the American to fight against Hitler and the Nazis. Ha! Not even close.
As most stories written about World War II, this story was disturbing, sad and enlightening. Up to the point in the story when Herta arrives for her new position at the "re-education camp" Ravensbruck, I felt bad for her. She was being sexually abused by her uncle - and her aunt apparently knew about it. She was a female doctor and wasn't even allowed to study surgery because she was female. When she showed up at Ravensbruck and seemed disturbed by some of the things she witnessed that first day, I thought for sure that if she stayed there, it would only be to try to save people. I still cannot believe how wrong I was! She was evil. She was a horrible person. To think that she operated on all of those healthy young girls, contaminating them with contagions, watching them suffer week after week - and then wanting them all executed to cover up what she did. I wanted her hung like the rest of her "colleagues". She didn't deserve to live after the physical abuse, emotional abuse and deaths she caused by her actions. They took away her medical license?? Big frickin deal.
Kasia was understandably slow to work through the abuse she suffered and the guilt she felt about her mother's death. I have to admit that I became very impatient with her though! After 12 years, she was STILL shutting out the people who loved her: her dad, her "stepmom", her husband, her daughter.... I felt like shaking some sense into her. She was so reluctant to support her beloved sister, Zuzanna, who just wanted to be happy with the man she loved and adopt a child, even after finding out that Zuzanna was sterilized at Ravensbruck. It was really hard to take after awhile. Zuzanna deserved to be happy. She had been through as much as Kasia. I wasn't sure how Kasia was going to handle her meeting with Herta - but I was proud of how she handled it. Although we had to wait until the last page of the book, Kasia was finally able to move forward with her life as a woman, wife and mother. It was a long wait though.
Caroline was amazing. I really, really liked her and her mother. They were both so fierce and relentless and kind and loving. Caroline made some interesting decisions along the way, but those decisions were true to her character. She was definitely a one-man woman! Once she met Paul, there would be no one else for her. I completely agreed with her decision to not be involved with him after his wife, Rena, was found alive, but I still felt incredibly sad for her. I am glad that they were "reunited" (at least that was the inference) at the end. I actually thought that she would adopt a child, even before we found out that Serge and Zuzanna were adopting a child. She wanted a baby so badly. That made me sad too, that she didn't get to marry the man she loved or have a baby with him. It was astounding that she persuaded all of the Polish woman (the rabbits) to meet with her, fly to America, consent to various surgeries, stay away from home and their families for several months before returning home to Poland. She must have been very persuasive and charismatic. I understood Kasia's fear about all of that.
What makes this book all the more remarkable is that most of the people were real: Herta Oberheuser and her fellow doctors, Caroline Ferriday and her family, the "rabbits".... Very well-written story.
Wendy's Rating: *****
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