I just finished The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart and would highly recommend it!
As you may remember, I had gone on a little WWII hiatus prior to reading The Rose Code by Kate Quinn because I was just so tired of the same old, time hopping WWII resistance stories. I ended up loving The Rose Code (check out my review here) and decided maybe I could toss the odd WWII histfic back into the TBR pile.
Then, last week I read People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn and I started to really reflect on what was it about WWII historical fiction books that had been bothering me. Was it the time hopping? This tried and true structure (read: extremely OVERDONE) for Historical Fictions sure did seem to be part of the problem.
At the same time though, I didn't feel like it was the whole problem, maybe just an annoying similarity among books from this time period and genre. Even before reading Horn's book I started to think maybe it had something to do with the resistance. I had read The Alice Network, also by Kate Quinn and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah with a separation of only 4 other books so probably in the same week lol). Both books are tales of the non-Jewish French resistance efforts and are more similar than they are different. Maybe I was just tired of long, suspenseful novels filled with gentiles risking their lives to try to stop Hitler's regime? But once I read Horn's book I realized that it was the fact that these extremely popular books focus on a narrative that was actually very rare and are not only taking the spotlight away from the plight of the real victims of the Holocaust and memorializing the actions of such a small group of white Europeans who fall in love and heroically risk their lives. Dara Horn is both Jewish and has a deep understanding of the literary world, giving her a unique perspective of this genre. She argues that people want a happy ending despite knowing these books are about mass atrocity. What gives us the right to believe that people who survived the Holocaust were happy and thankful and should appreciate the efforts of the 0.001% of Europeans who tried to save them? And even if they were, is that our story to tell?
You might be thinking.... I thought this post was supposed to be about The Midwife of Auschwitz not a debate about what makes WWII historical fiction novels a best seller. You're right, I think I'm just about ready to move on! For more background info about People Love Dead Jews, and why I found this non-fiction text so thought provoking, see my previous blog post here!
The reason for the contextual background was that this book was very different from some of the other WWII books I've read in the last year or two. Firstly, it did not time hop, all of the events took place in chronological order from the beginning of Germany's invasion of Poland until mid 1945. Second, while there was mention of the resistance it seemed slightly more accurate. And third, the happy endings were limited.
The Midwife of Aushwitz tells the story of two women, Ana and Ester. Ana is a middle aged Polish midwife who has a very good track record in delivering babies who survive birth, as do their mothers. Having delivered Ester - a Jewish nurse in her early twenties, several years ago, Ana reconnects with Ester at her wedding. Ester's wedding is not the happy occasion she and her new husband Filip, a Jewish tailor, expected, as Nazi soldiers storm the synagogue and Ester and Filip must be snuck out the back. The wedding day foreshadows the terrifying events to come.
Over time, Germany's reign causes more and more damage to the Polish people, especially the Jews. Both Ana and Ester's families must relocate because Ana's house is in the middle of an area designated part of the new ghetto, and Ester's family must downsize significantly and include multiple families in a small apartment inside the lines of the ghetto. Ester takes on an increasingly difficult role as one of the only nurses in the makeshift ghetto hospital, and asks for Ana's advice in how to deliver babies. Ana does her best to support Ester from outside the ghetto and continues to connect with Ester secretly, offering medical supplies for the ghetto hospital. Ana's son, who has a job in the train transportation sector and has access to trains which make their way through the ghetto at regular intervals, also becomes involved in both providing supplies and sneaking people out of the ghetto. Eventually, Ana and two of her sons are accused of being part of the resistance and Ana ends up on a train to Auschwitz at the same time as Ester and her dying mother. Together in Auschwitz, Ana and Ester face cruel conditions and brutal punishments as they attempt to provide what limited medical care they can with no supplies and disease running rampant. Completely cut off from any information about their families, both Ester and Ana have no idea whether or not they will have anyone left to return home to if they manage to outlast this excruciating war.
Aside from Ana and her sons, there is limited other mention of the resistance efforts, and all three characters were caught and punished for their efforts after a very short period of time. Communication between Ana and her husband, considering they were gentiles, was still extremely limited and highly censored. Both Ana and Ester received some snippets of information about friends and family through other inmates at Auschwitz, but even then the status and whereabouts of loved ones were mainly guesses. As the war rages on and an end is in sight, both Ana and Ester question where are the people coming to save them? They know that information about Auschwitz has gotten out, they also see the Nazis trying to cover their crimes by destroying crematoria and digging up former mass graves to burn the evidence. They know that people know what is happening, but they continue to wonder why no one is coming to save them. Following the end of the war when Auschwitz finally is liberated, those who survived were involved in painstaking searches for their family members with most searches ending in heartbreak and loss. Unfortunately for many, the end of the war came way too late.
This book was not uplifting, it was not about happy endings or love stories. It was about the lengths people went to in an attempt to survive the most inhumane conditions. It was about murder. It was about sacrifice. It was about resilience and never giving up. And it was those thing that made it such a good book.
We should never get complacent and let the media tell us that there was anything positive about genocide. Whether we are discussing the Holocaust, Rwanda, the Holodomor, Residential Schools or any other mass atrocity, we may be able to find survival stories that are beautiful, touching and inspiring, but the reality is, those uplifting stories should never have had to happen! If we assume that future wars (hmmmm... like what's going on in Ukraine right now?!) will be solved by someone else stepping up and resisting, we as a civilization are doomed. Just as Ana and Ester wondered in the book, if people know about what is happening, why isn't anyone doing anything to stop it? Well, they either think it is impossible or they hope someone else is trying to solve the problem.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review The Midwife of Auschwitz! It was a really great book and deserves as much recognition as any of the other WII Historical Fictions on your shelf.
Find all of the books I mentioned in this post on Amazon by clicking on the photos below!
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