Lilac Girls

Lilac Girls (#584), Martha Hall Kelly's debut novel, is based on real events and people.  In it she intertwines the lives of three women who, due to events in World War II, are destined to play a defining role in each other's lives.  Ravensbruck, the infamous all women's concentration camp in Germany, is the catalyst.  The medical experiments conducted there during the war have largely been forgotten.  Lilac Girls is a gripping reminder.  Non-fiction can lay out the facts, but Ms. Kelly has used the lens of imagination to breathe life and emotional power onto every page.


Caroline Ferriday is an older, single New York socialite whose life revolves around charity work.  Since her family owns property in France, naturally she is involved with work with French orphans.  Her advocacy for the French extends throughout the war and beyond, as she works with displaced persons.  Kasia Kuzmerick is a teenager from Lublin, Poland.  When the Germans occupy her city, she is drawn into a network of resistance, ultimately leading to her arrest.  She blames herself when her mother and sister and friends are taken along with her.  Herta Oberheuser is a young female doctor, newly qualified who cannot find work to support her family after Hitler's new social policies are put in place.  According to the Fuhrer, Herta's place is in the home, producing more babies for the Reich, instead of at the operating table.  She answers an advertisement to work at a women's reeducation camp located in a resort area of Germany, never suspecting what the true purpose of the camp is.


Each woman's story is told in alternating chapters, from the glittering ballroom of the Waldorf Hotel to the hourly struggle to stay alive in the camp.  But survive, Kasia and Herta do, although their suffering is not over yet.  Poland is squeezed under Communist Rule, Displaced Persons still need to be found a permanent home, and reparations still made for wartime atrocities.  You don't always like or even admire these three women, but their stories are compelling.  Martha Hall Kelly has done an excellent job in bringing this forgotten chapter of World War II to light.  Highly recommended. 


P.S.  Martha Hall Kelly will be a speaker at 2017's Book!Mania - can't wait to hear her in person.  My sister-in-law and I will definitely be taking a field trip next time I'm in New England to visit Caroline Ferriday's estate in Bethlehem, Connecticut!