Blog Tour ~ Born Survivors by Wendy Holden

Honoured to be part of this commemorative edition

Blog Tour

Little Brown Books
Re-issued in 2020

On the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp

My thanks to the publishers for my ecopy of this book
and the invitation to be part of this blog tour

New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Finalist in Goodreads 2015 Book of the Year, and the Elle Grand Prix de Lectrices in France. Nominated for the US National Jewish Book Award. Published in 22 countries and translated into 16 languages.

Among the millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel and Anka each pass through the concentration camp’s infamous gates with a secret. Separated from their husbands, strangers to one another, they are newly pregnant, alone, and terrified. With so many loved ones already lost to the Nazis, these three young women are privately determined to hold onto all they have left – their lives and those of their unborn babies. 

Born Survivors follows the mothers’ incredible journey – first to Auschwitz, where they come under the eagle-eyed scrutiny of Dr. Josef Mengele, the ‘Angel of Death’ who asks each of them, “Are you pregnant, pretty woman?” then to a slave labour camp where they are half-starved and virtually worked to death. Struggling to hide their condition as the Allies close in, they are finally sent on a hellish 17-day train journey with thousands of other prisoners to the Mauthausen death camp in Austria

That the gas chambers ran out of Zyklon B just after the three babies were born within days of each other and in unspeakable circumstances, is just one of several miracles that allowed all three mothers and their sickly 3lb infants to survive. Against all the odds, the women brought home their babies and managed to rebuild their lives after World War II, in spite of continuing prejudice and anti-Semitism that led them to flee variously to the United Kingdom, United States and Israel. These once educated, articulate and intelligent women all raised in happy, wealthy families had married for love, but lost their husbands and most of their families to the Nazis. 

Their miracle children - two girls and a boy named Hana, Eva, and Mark - went on to have children of their own, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history. Sixty-five years after the Americans freed them, they met the others for first time at Mauthausen on the emotional anniversary of their liberation. All only children, they have become ‘siblings of the heart.’

What did I think about it..

It's difficult to know where to start with this account of the ordeal that these three brave women went through and of the sheer determination and bravery shown in the most horrific of circumstances. Any words of mine will fail to do justice to this powerful account of survival against all odds.

I have read several books throughout the years about the Holocaust and the horrors inflicted on the Jewish population during WW2, and they have all left a lasting impression but none more so than Born Survivors which, I must admit, gave me sleepless nights, and a profound horror at man's inhumanity to man, or, in this case, to its fertile women.

Three women, Priska, Rachel and Anka each with a detailed story which tells of hardship, deprivation, cruelty and horror on a scale we, 75 years later, can never begin to imagine. Torn from their families, and husbands, in the latter years of the war and taken first to Auschwitz, they come under the scrutiny of a vicious regime which offered neither hope, charity nor any sort of human kindness, and where their initial contact with the notorious 'Angel of Death', Dr. Josef Mengele, opened with the same question, "Are you pregnant, pretty woman?". A question which made my blood run cold.

"We came to hell and we didn't know why." Anka said. We were disembarking but we didn't know where...We were frightened but we didn't know what of..."

I have to say that I read most of this book with a huge lump in my throat and cried so many tears I was in danger of running out of tissues. As a mother, and a grandmother, I can only try to imagine what each of these mothers' went through in order to carry a baby, and nurture it for 9 months, when they themselves were starving and ill used, and then to give birth in horrific circumstances, not knowing if they and their tiny little babies, weighing less than 3lbs, would be sent to their deaths.

The author brings Priska, Rachel and Anka alive in the imagination. She gives them back a voice that was so sadly taken away from them and shows how the power of fortitude, and the sheer strength of the human spirit to survive, can never be diminished, or under-estimated.

The story of these survivors, how the three babies went on to share a common bond as‘siblings of the heart’ is a heartbreaking account of what it means to them to be Born Survivors and it is a timely reminder to us that we should never take what we have for granted.

About the Author

WENDY HOLDEN is a former journalist and war correspondent who has written more than thirty non-fiction titles, most of which feature inspirational women and many of them international bestsellers. They include Tomorrow to Be Brave about the only woman in the French Foreign Legion (soon to be a film); Behind Enemy Lines about a French Jewish spy in WWII (now an award winning documentary), and Till the Sun Grows Cold the story of a British woman caught up in the Sudanese war. She lives in Suffolk with her husband and two dogs.

Website

Twitter @wendholden #BornSurvivors

@LittleBrownUK

Amazon UK


The special commemorative edition of Born Survivors by Wendy Holden, which includes new material, is published by Sphere (r.r.p. £8.99)

Sunday WW1 Remembered ...

The Poppies Wave and Weeping Window designed by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper have been on tour around the UK since July 2015. The two sculptures were initially part of the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red at the Tower of London in the summer and autumn of 2014. 

© J Barton

IWM North is currently hosting Wave whilst IWM London is hosting Weeping Window

At the end of the tour in December 2018 both of the installations will be preserved for the nation and will become part of the IWM collection with Wave remaining at IWM North in Salford and Weeping Window at IWM London.

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On a glorious autumn day this week I visited the Poppy : Wave installation at the Imperial War Museum North at Salford Quays. 

© Digital Images

People stood quietly, some in contemplation, others walking around the installation to view from different angles, many taking photographs on mobile phones and digital cameras. On every face I saw respect for the thousands of war dead who were represented by each of the scarlet poppies that cascaded in a graceful arch, each symbolising a life which was lost forever.

© Digital Images

Find out more about the poppies on the 14-18Now Website

or visit IWM North where the poppies can be seen until the 25 November

Follow the Poppies on Twitter #PoppiesTour

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The Bard is 450....

April 23 2014

is the 450th anniversary

of the birth of

 William Shakespeare.

23 April 1564 - 23 April 1616

William Shakespeare
Wikipedia

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves

Whilst the actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, it has been assumed that he was born on or around 23rd April. His baptism date is given as the 26th April 1564. Born and brought up in Stratford-upon -Avon, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway at 18 and had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and  Judith.

By 1585-1592, Shakespeare was in London making a career as a writer, playwright and part owner of a company of players, known as The Lord Chamberlain's men, later known as The King's Men.

Producing most of his work between 1592 -1613, he at first wrote comedies and histories, but by the end of the 16th century he was writing tragedies and tragicomedies and was collaborating with other playwrights.

He died in 1616 and is buried at the Holy Trinity Church Stratford-upon-Avon and is also commemorated at Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey, London. 

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I recently reviewed two books which feature William Shakespeare as one of the leading characters.

Myriad Editions
March 2014

Aemilia Bassano, the daughter of an impoverished court musician, uses her intelligence and her considerable beauty to make her way amongst the upper echelons of Elizabethan high society. As the mistress of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, the patron of Shakespeare’s theatre company, Aemilia, is soon noticed by the charismatic playwright William Shakespeare, and it is this abiding love/hate relationship between Shakespeare and Aemilia which is the real focus of the story. There is much debate about the identity of the mysterious ‘Dark Lady’ who features in the sonnets of William Shakespeare. This novel cleverly explores the alleged fascination which the playwright had for Aemilia Bassano, and it is entirely possible that she could have been muse and his one true love.

Beautifully written, with a real authenticity, the story reads like a time travel journal, and effortlessly takes the reader into the very heart of Elizabethan London, to a land alive with political mayhem and society scandal. The glitterati of the great, and the not so good, of Elizabeth’s court are shown as bright and brittle butterflies, who flit into and out of the story with comparative ease, and yet, it is in the minutiae of daily life where the story really comes alive. With comparable ease, we are taken from the squalor and stench of death-carts and plague-pits, through to the posturing and raucous swagger of the actors who parade centre stage at the Globe theatre.  Throughout the novel, there is an authentic ripeness to the narrative with the inspired use of colourful and slightly risqué language, which helps to support the time travel idea, and thankfully, there is a good glossary which places the vocabulary into context.

There is no doubt that Aemilia’s unrivalled charm, wit and intelligence gave her the impetus to become the first professional female poet, and yet, it is her struggle for control, appreciation and survival in a male dominated world, which is her lasting legacy.

Polygon
February 2014

This imagined autobiography of the life of the eminent bard starts as William Shakespeare, on his death bed, attempts to exit this mortal coil by recounting his life story to his lawyer Francis Collins. Making sense of this enigmatic playwright’s life and times is no easy feat and the author has done a commendable job in fleshing out the details of Shakespeare’s life from his early childhood in Stratford, through to adulthood amongst the glittering court world of Elizabethan politics and Jacobean skulduggery.

There is no doubt that the author has done his research extremely well and has unearthed snippets of Shakespeare’s life which shows that the bard lived a colourful and extremely lively existence. There are some lovely descriptive accounts of both Elizabethan and Jacobean England when the glittering prose really does leap off the page and by leaving nothing to the imagination the sights, sounds and smells of the era really do come gloriously alive.

There is a compelling lyricism to the narrative which is rather poetic and it certainly has more than enough historical content, in fact, there were times when I forgot that the book was a novel as it is presented more like a non-fiction account and some of the lovely literary prose is achingly reminiscent of some of Shakespeare’s own writings.

I’m not sure that this book will appeal to reading groups per se unless they have a real interest in complex historical content. My view is that this book stands rather as a multifaceted personal read and more as one to be savoured slowly rather than read at full speed.

Both these book were originally reviewed for newbooks - the magazine for readers and reading groups

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