Dark and Emotional Story of Nine Women Surviving Against All Odds
"If I die now or tomorrow, no one will care. Sure, my family, my mother and father, a few friends, but soon I will be forgotten. I haven't left a trace on the earth. What have we left behind us if we give up now?"
Thank you to BookishFirst and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Content warnings: Holocaust, WWII, death, abuse (nearly all forms), mental illness, depression, violence, implied incest (?), genocide, racism, homophobia, etc. This book could be extremely triggering to many and is difficult to read even as someone with few triggers.
The Nine follows the true story of a group of nine women who managed to escape a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. These women were taken as political prisoners, whether from being active members of the Resistance or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This story tells a harrowing tale of events that these women endured and how they managed to not only escape, but how they managed to make it to the fronts to find the American soldiers and safety, and a brief glimpse into each of their lives adapting to "normalcy" again, ending with the legacies these women left behind.
This took me nearly a month and half to get through, because I often found myself in tears or unable to stomach the horrors that they and so many others went through. I knew some of these events in general terms from history classes in high school, but plenty of these details were entirely unknown to me. I had no idea so much of what happened to women during the war was considered taboo to discuss or the impact of the intergenerational trauma for decades to follow.
This book was written by a poet who is also the great-niece (?) of the leader of the group, Hélène Podliasky. So much research was clearly put into this novel, especially into discovering the histories of the women, but there are some connections or events that are more imagined or implied. One scene, in particular, was written as though it had actually happened, and I would not have known it was only a possibility/author's use of the imagination if I had not gone to the Notes section in the back of the book. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this aspect.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in learning about the strength, resilience, and sisterhood of nine women who survived despite insurmountable odds stacked against them, or to learn about the role of women in the war that may not have been taught in school.
Thank you to BookishFirst and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Content warnings: Holocaust, WWII, death, abuse (nearly all forms), mental illness, depression, violence, implied incest (?), genocide, racism, homophobia, etc. This book could be extremely triggering to many and is difficult to read even as someone with few triggers.
The Nine follows the true story of a group of nine women who managed to escape a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. These women were taken as political prisoners, whether from being active members of the Resistance or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This story tells a harrowing tale of events that these women endured and how they managed to not only escape, but how they managed to make it to the fronts to find the American soldiers and safety, and a brief glimpse into each of their lives adapting to "normalcy" again, ending with the legacies these women left behind.
This took me nearly a month and half to get through, because I often found myself in tears or unable to stomach the horrors that they and so many others went through. I knew some of these events in general terms from history classes in high school, but plenty of these details were entirely unknown to me. I had no idea so much of what happened to women during the war was considered taboo to discuss or the impact of the intergenerational trauma for decades to follow.
This book was written by a poet who is also the great-niece (?) of the leader of the group, Hélène Podliasky. So much research was clearly put into this novel, especially into discovering the histories of the women, but there are some connections or events that are more imagined or implied. One scene, in particular, was written as though it had actually happened, and I would not have known it was only a possibility/author's use of the imagination if I had not gone to the Notes section in the back of the book. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this aspect.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in learning about the strength, resilience, and sisterhood of nine women who survived despite insurmountable odds stacked against them, or to learn about the role of women in the war that may not have been taught in school.