Another important story about the horror of the Holocaust. This one focuses on the babies who were born at Auschwitz between 1943-1945 with the assistance of a Polish, Christian midwife by the name of Stanislawa Leszczynska. Since this is not her biography, the author represented her in the book using the name of Ana Kaminski. Stanislawa/Ana was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau for supporting the resistance, of which her three sons and eventually her husband were a part of. At Auschwitz, she is known to have assisted in over 3,000 births. Unfortunately, most of those babies did not survive after birth. The Jewish babies were put to death almost immediately. Some babies were eventually part of the Lebensborn Program. This program took blond haired babies and children away from their mothers and sent them to German homes to be raised. Ana and her assistant, Ester Abrams, who was Jewish but trained to be a nurse, decided to secretly tattoo the armpits of newborns to be taken by the Lebensborn Program with their mother's number so that they could potentially be reunited after the war. As much as I have read about Auschwitz, this is something that I didn't know about. The bravery and survival of these women and others is simply astounding. It's incredible how much the human body can endure if the will to survive is strong.
This story starts in 1939 in Lodz, Poland. The horror for these people begins when the Jewish people were informed that they needed to move their families to a specific part of the city that was set up as a "Jewish Ghetto". In order to establish this ghetto, Polish Christians were forced to move out of the area as well. The Jewish people were crammed into homes, with different families living together. The Christians forced to move were told to find a different home, mostly the homes that the Jews were forced to leave. Initially, these people were told they could voluntarily move to a "camp" instead of staying in the Lodz ghetto. This was before people realized the Nazis' intent was to use these camps as death camps for the Jewish people and others with non-Aryan traits. Ana & Ester's story starts here and follows them to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they stay until January 27, 1945, their day of liberation.
The horrors of Auschwitz are well-known by now, but there are so many levels and aspects to this horror that I learn something new with every book I read about World War II. My heart breaks more with every story. As painful as the details are, the spirit, bravery, and perserverance for life of all those that suffered and/or survived keeps me reading.
Wendy's Rating: *****
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