I wouldn’t call myself a history buff, but I have always been interested in looking back to learn about the world through the lens of historical documentation. In school, I really loved history assignments, literature reviews, biopics, geography challenges and researching about any topic that brought me back into a previous time. But for some reason, I’ve especially been drawn to World War II era stories.

Neither of my grandpas served in WWII—they were just a little too young—but all four grandparents were definitely alive enough to be impacted by the socio-economic shifts before, during and particularly after the war.

One set of grandparents lived in the same town as me starting when I was in middle school. Their backyard neighbors, with whom they developed a strong friendship, were French immigrants who had fought in the French resistance networks. I was totally fascinated by what little I knew of their stories and even arranged once to interview Agnes about her experience. I was super disappointed when she ended up canceling the interview and had a hard time understanding why she wouldn’t want to talk about being a hero (which is all I really knew about what fighting against an evil regime meant). Having lived quite a bit more life, and read stories like The Hiding Place (Corie Ten Boom) and The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany (Gwen Strauss) I can now see why there are some happy endings whose preceding stories are kept locked up within memories.

The Nine tells the interwoven stories of a group of incredible women who were held together as political prisoners at the HASAG Leipzig prison factory in eastern Germany during World War II. All nine had worked as resistance fighters in France (though two were Dutch and one was Spanish) and most had been compromised and captured less than a year before the end of the War.

In the spring months of 1945, the Nazis sensed the impending end as the American and Soviet troops began to liberate cities throughout Europe. Orders were sent out to empty the concentration camps and destroy evidence of the human rights atrocities that were committed in the form of slave labor (physical and sexual), gas chambers, firing squad executions, starvation, torture and generally horrible living conditions. The German military had nowhere to actually send the prisoners, so they just marched the emaciated thousands aimlessly around the country. From one of these “death marches” the nine friends escaped, and after a harrowing cross-country experience, made it safely across the front line and into freedom.

The author of The Nine, Gwen Strauss, is the great-niece of the leader of this group of women, Hélène Podliasky. She was able to interview her great-aunt one time before Hélène passed away. Much of the book was written based on the notes, journals, correspondences and written accounts of some of the other women, combined with interviews Gwen conducted with relatives of the other eight and war records (the Nazis were unbelievably thorough in their record-keeping).

The collective story of the nine heroic women was captivating, but I felt the way the book was written stilted the narrative (though I admit that interweaving nine separate narratives into one book would be difficult to do smoothly). The extensive trials the women endured (plenty of which were probably didn’t even make it into the story) made me feel sick. I’ve visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site twice, and both experiences left me speechless and completely heartbroken. The Nine unearthed these same feelings—it’s completely wild how horrible humans can be to each other. Reading this book within the current state of the world, I was further uncomfortable. I’m not sure we’ve really learned our lessons yet.

One of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed learning about historical events and figures is the opportunity to put myself in the shoes of others—to imagine how I might have acted and reacted had I been living in similar circumstances. I pray that I never end up in the shoes (or wooden clogs and tattered striped dresses) that “the nine” inhabited. If I do, I also pray that I possess an iota of the courage, strength, grit, optimism, kindness, community mindset and presence of mind that Hélène, Zinka, Zaza, Jacky, Josée, Nicole, Mena, Lon and Guigui exhibited during their captivation, escape and reentrance into a world they hardly recognized—one which barely acknowledged their contribution to the war effort nor the hardships they were subjected to because of their heroic actions. Their stories, regardless of the storytelling, are valid, powerful and important, and I feel privileged to have caught a glimpse of their lives through this book.

This book may be for you if you also like: world history; French; France; Germany; polyglots; La Résistance; World War II; stories of incredible grit, perseverance & survival; learning about the Holocaust; Europe; multinational friendships; sisterhood; chosen family; strong female leaders; nonfiction; historical nonfiction.

SDG

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