Genre: Novel
Grade: A-
Notable People: Martha Hall Kelly
Title: The Lilac Girls
Review: Completely engrossing true story of three women living lives dramatically altered by the world war two experience. The most main character, Caroline Ferriday, was an extraordinarily courageous woman who organized help for Nazi- displaced French children through the French embassy in New York and later became involved with the “Rabbits”- the group of mostly Posh women who were tortured and endured deforming and often fatal medical experiments at the Ravensbrauck concentration camp. The book follows Caroline and two other woman: Kasia- a Polish woman hauled off to the camp by the Nazis at the outset of the war, and, Herga, a young German doctor who became the only woman doctor involved in these horrible Himmler-driven medical experiments at the camps. The book follows the three in alternate chapters from the pre-war fright of ate late 30s through the cold war peak in the late fifties. Maybe not brilliantly written, but an incredibly well researched and thought out story..…I did not want this one (a Christmas gift from my daughter ) to end. mandatory reading in these times- in my book.