- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 5648 KB
- Print Length: 396 pages
- Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (1 Sept. 2019)
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B07KF527YS
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Synopsis
Berlin, 1989. As the wall between East and West falls, Miriam Winter cares for her dying father, Henryk. When he cries out for someone named Frieda – and Miriam discovers an Auschwitz tattoo hidden under his watch strap – Henryk’s secret history begins to unravel.
Searching for more clues of her father’s past, Miriam finds an inmate uniform from the Ravensbrück women’s camp concealed among her mother’s things. Within its seams are dozens of letters to Henryk written by Frieda. The letters reveal the disturbing truth about the ‘Rabbit Girls’, young women experimented on at the camp. And amid their tales of sacrifice and endurance, Miriam pieces together a love story that has been hidden away in Henryk’s heart for almost fifty years.
Inspired by these extraordinary women, Miriam strives to break through the walls she has built around herself. Because even in the darkest of times, hope can survive.
Review
The Rabbit Girls is set between 1989, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the Nazi Prison Camps of Wold War II. Miriam goes to look after her father after a stroke, and whilst there finds a tattoo from Auschwitz on his wrist, something she knew nothing about. He also calls out for someone called Frieda, and Miriam relaises how little she knows about her father., Whilst there, Miriam sorts through some of her mother’s clothes and comes across a uniform with letters hidden in the hem and secret pockets. As secrets are revealed from the past, Miriam tries to help her father find out what happened to Freida, and in the process face some her own fears. This is a story of family, love, sacrifice and fighting oppression in its many guises.
The story is narrated by Miriam in the present day, and chapters narrated by her father Henryk tells the story of how he met Freida in the early 1940’s, and how their relationship developed. There are also the letters from Freida in the Prison Camps, telling of her daily ordeal and the treatment of the prisoners. It is from these letters that the title of the book comes from. The Rabbit Girls were young girls used for medical experiments in the camps, experiments that deformed them, made them invalids and ultimately killed them. These three seemingly very different narratives weave together to show the strength of these women and how still in 1989 people were still escaping oppression in its many guises and looking for freedom.
The setting of 1989 in Berlin, at the time of the Wall’s fall is important in this book for what it stands for. Finally people were free to move from East to West Germany and those from the East were able to escape the Communist regime they had lived under. The idea of seeking freedom from persecution and imprisonment, is a thread that combines the three narratives and the main characters. Miriam is in her forties, has been married for twenty years to a man who abused her emotionally and physically. It is only when her father becomes ill that she breaks away, but staying away is the problem. Through the letters from Freida to Henryk, the stories of what the women endured in the Prison Camps, and her new friend Eva from East Berlin she finds an inner strength to fight back in her own bid for freedom.
The short chapters and the different narrators kept my attention and made this such an absorbing read to the extent I carried the book around the house so I could read a few pages at every chance, including when feeding the dogs. There are some admirable and strong women in this book, even if they do not know their strength; Miriam against her husband, Frieda in helping others in the prison camps, and Emilie, Henryk’s wife. It is their stories that shine through in this book and make it such a powerful book to read.
The Rabbit Girls is a beautiful and haunting tale, about hope, love, family and freedom. All books about the Holocaust are powerful, emotional and important so that stories of what happened there are never forgotten. This is a stunning debut from Anna Ellory, full of emotion and with characters and a story I don’t think will ever leave me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my review today. If you have a few minutes please share via social media or leave me a comment.
Thank you to Lake Union publishing for inviting me to be part of the blog tour in return for an honest review.
