2025 Reading Goal - Read Books From My TBR Pile

by Susan Roberts

One of my reading goals for this year is to reduce the number of books in my huge tbr stack.  As I do this, I'll be reviewing some older books that I really enjoyed.

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Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar

August 2018; Thomas Nelson; 978-0785219958
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); historical fiction

Based on the true story of a brave German nurse tasked with caring for Auschwitz’s youngest prisoners, Auschwitz Lullaby brings to life the story of Helene Hannemann—a woman who sacrificed everything for her family and fought furiously for the children she hoped to save.

I read a lot of WWII fiction but this book, based on the life of a real person, was one of the most emotional books about the war that I've read in a long time.  It highlighted the love that a mother has for her children and ultimately for all of the children that she came in contact with during the dark days at Auschwitz.

Helene Hannemann was a German woman who fell in love with and married a Gypsy and they had five children.  Marrying a gypsy was frowned on by society at this time but it was absolutely not allowed in Nazi Germany.  On an early morning in May 1942, the Germans arrived to take her husband and her five children to Auschwitz.  Helene was told that since she was German, she would not be forced to leave but as a mother she refused to let her children be taken away from her so she left with them.  They all were taken to Auschwitz in a cattle car and her husband was separated from her and the children when they arrived..  There was a special area in the camp for the gypsies that, at least in the beginning, was not as terrible as the Jewish areas.  When the Germans learned that Helene was a nurse, she began working in the hospital which helped her protect her family more.  When Dr. Mengele arrived at the camp to start performing his horrific experiments on children, he got to know and admire Helene.  He asked her to start a small school for the gypsy children and provided all of the items that they needed to make it a real school. Helene and her friends were excited to be able to help the children in the camp but it soon became apparent that Mengele had an ulterior motive for the school.  Helene and several other prisoners worked for 16 months to help the children in the school but as the war outcome began to shift, the Germans began to get rid of all traces of what happened at Auschwitz.  Will Helene be able to save herself and the family that she loves?

Be sure to read the Author's notes at the end.  He goes into detail about the characters in the story who are based on real people and gives a timeline of the gypsy camp at Auschwitz.  His research was extensive and it shows on every page of the book.

This is an emotional look at one woman's love, perseverance, hope, and strength in one of the most horrific times in history.

Book Dedication: "To the more than twenty thousand ethnic Gypsies who were imprisoned and exterminated in Auschwitz and to the quarter million murdered in the forests and ditches of northern Europe and Russia."

Buy Auschwitz Lullaby at Amazon

THREADS by Charlotte Whitney

November 2019; Indie; 978-0578666761
audio, ebook, print (326 pages); historical fiction

I recently read and enjoyed A Tiny Piece of Blue (see review here) by this author and decided to read one of her earlier books.  I was quite happy to find an unread copy on my bookshelves!  I enjoyed Threads almost as much as the earlier book that I read and it was very apparent how much her writing has improved.

Threads takes place at a small farm in Michigan during the Great Depression. Times are tough for everyone but especially for small farm owners.  They are all only one step away from losing their farms - a year of bad weather can make the difference between success and failure.  One family's struggle is told in this story by the three daughters.  Nellie is 7 years old.  She attends school but loves to spend her time at the creek and roaming through the fields - she has a vivid imagination and spends her time talking to the cows and dreaming about a friend who lives in space.  Irene is 11 and can't wait to get away from farm life. She's a great student and hopes that being so smart can help her find a new life when she gets older.  She treats Nellie like a baby and she is as practical about life as Nellie is imaginative.  Flora is 16 and her goal is to get married and be a farm wife.  She is responsible and helpful to her mother with chores.  Sometimes she wishes that she had a new dress but totally understands how much her parents are struggling.  Even though during many of the chapters, we get the sister's reports of their daily lives there is a lot going on - Nellie finds a baby buried in the woods and the sisters work together to solve the mystery, was it the gypsies or a vagrant?  Girls have disappeared from the area and there are bad people trying to kidnap children either to put them to work or, more likely, to use them to become part of their prostitution rings.

This is a character-driven novel so there isn't a lot of action.  Instead, it's a look at what life was like for three young girls growing up during the hard times of the Great Depression.  I enjoyed the Epilogue set in 1974 to learn about the sisters as adults and their memories of growing up.

Buy THREADS at Amazon 

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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