This is an intense and extremely thorough description of the lives of nine courageous young women who rose to the occasion and joined resistance movements during WWII. They, like others, are the unsung heroes. Although their reasons for risking their lives were varied, ranging from romantic involvements to love of country to saving Jews and children, all of their efforts were valiant.
After being betrayed and captured, they were interrogated, beaten, abused and sent to various prison camps and concentration camps in Germany, where they found each other in their struggle to survive. They bonded and cared for each other with total commitment and loyalty and credit this amazing friendship for their survival.
Their harrowing experiences, however, were hair-raising. Often only luck and deception saved them. Though they experienced the loss of their friends, family and children, they could not stop to mourn or rest. They had to continue with their roll calls, their work and their suffering regardless. They propped each other up providing each other with the courage to continue. They were political prisoners, and did not suffer as greatly as some in the camps, but they were forced to witness selections, torture, suicides, neglect and the murder of innocent victims. They were barely fed and lived in squalor with absolutely no hygiene or medicine. They never knew when they would be singled out for unknown or unpreventable infractions. Illness could be an automatic death sentence. There was no medication and if you couldn’t work, you had no purpose.
Their imprisonment and the people they encountered during that time, is thoroughly investigated by the author. Their torment by soldier and citizen alike, is writ large on the page. Their ultimate escape and rescue is the stuff of nightmares. Liberators were often as cruel or crueler than the Nazis. The Russians and Americans were sometimes like animals let loose.
This book has a different approach to WWII since it does not single out the plight of the Jews, but rather it focuses on those who were impacted by the Nazis who were not actually their specific targets, like the Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. It dwells more on the citizens of the countries that Hitler invaded who refused to take it sitting down and tried to fight back.
One of this group of nine women featured is the author’s aunt, and armed only with brief information, nicknames and a few facts, she has unearthed their history and follows their lives until their deaths. On the way, many other interesting and heroic people, perhaps unsung until now, are featured, along with these nine women. Often, after the tragedy of the Holocaust, many of its victims either wanted to, or were told to, hide their experiences. They were too inhuman and uncivilized to contemplate and had to be left in the past. It was, therefore, a difficult task to uncover a lot of their experiences.
The effect of the wartime experiences on Hitler’s victims is profound because it extends from one generation to another. Since, when they returned, their surviving relatives asked them not to talk of their fiendish experiences, and the women were sometimes suspected of having been prostitutes for the Germans and were judged tainted even though they were not willing partners, even more psychological scars formed. The negative psychological effects for the victims were visited upon their families. Depression, hostility, and suicides occurred. The children suffered from the secrets that were harbored. They formed their own support grups.
The book is a must read for anyone who reads about WWII, although it is hard to read. It is necessary to prevent man’s inhumanity to man, which is on full display, from repeating itself. I have read a lot on the Holocaust, and yet, this book revealed even more of the horrors to me, of the maniacal, largely unbelievable barbarism that actually occurred. Once again, I was surprised to discover that there were still more heinous acts committed by Nazis then I had known before. It fills in a lot of the blank spaces that you may not have even known were in your store of knowledge about the events.